The entire time that Ivan was exploring the mysterious new tunnel, the dungeon core had been carefully observing everything. It was very eager to see the results of its new, subsidiary dungeon beneath the humans’ city, as it had tried something very different there.

Instead of trying to replicate the natural environment of the surface, or even try to produce something new, the core had decided to simply continue with what it had found in the underground regions of the city.

While the core had gleaned no knowledge of the sewers from the memories of those who had died within its depths, the purpose of the sewers was readily evident, given their contents.

Furthermore, the core had realized that it would be difficult to deliberately lure in warriors or soldiers, which meant that it needed to lower the difficulty dramatically.

Rats had already been prevalent and abundant in the sewers, so it was only natural that the core use those as some of its creatures.

There were also a few fish, which were easily used, and some small lizards.

Unfortunately, the variety was quite sparse, compared to what the core had become accustomed to working with, and so it had started searching for additional options to include.

While nothing was found initially, the core had also noticed that there was an entire world and ecosystem that existed on a far, far smaller scale than what it normally operated on.

As the core’s perception had increased, it had eventually been able to observe single-celled organisms, and even viruses. While viruses seemed to be of limited use, observing amoebas and such had intrigued the core. These life forms were so small and relatively simple, but was there any way to improve them as it had done with its other creatures?

That line of thought had resulted in the core working to grow larger and larger amoebas. They had initially either literally fallen apart and collapsed, or ceased to function after reaching a certain size, but after numerous experiments, the core had found that by increasing the size of some of the internal components of the tiny life forms, and also by extensively replicating others, it was possible to induce the growth of large versions of the life forms that could wriggle about and absorb whatever they managed to devour.

The core had tested the odd little blobs against some of its other creatures, and had found that, interestingly enough, provided that the main kernel of the creatures remained intact, they were surprisingly difficult to truly kill. Also, by splitting that kernel, they could divide and replicate, which was extremely useful.

They were also incredibly robust against piercing or slashing attacks, though relatively susceptible to blunt attacks, or even simply being squashed.

The core had decided that its new blobs would be perfect for the sewers, as they fit right within the difficulty that it was aiming for.

As the core had gained more memories from various humans, it had realized that it needed to be able to draw a much larger selection of humans, if it was going to be successful. Merely appealing or targeting the warriors was too restrictive, and the core wanted to expand its possibilities. For this reason, it had decided to have a second dungeon more accessible to the rest of the humans, and also lower the difficulty enough to not scare them off.

Seeing the old man eliminate rats and a few blobs had been rather enlightening for the core. The old man was clearly less skilled than the soldiers who regularly challenged the first dungeon, yet he still appeared to be quite experienced with his cudgel. Not once had the rats managed to bite the old man, which was quite far outside of the core’s expectations.

As for the blobs, they had performed as the core had expected, given that the man was using nothing more than a wooden club. The core was anticipating the reactions humans would have when they discovered that the blobs could basically ignore swords, spears, and arrows.

Furthermore, the core was testing some things on the old man as well.

After realizing the natural limitations of the human body, the core had started to research how it might be possible to strengthen humans so that they could hold greater amounts of mana and provide even greater rewards when “harvested.” To that end, the core had looked at offering several different new forms of rewards to those who challenged its dungeons.

For starters, the core had found a way long ago to provide its own creatures with skills that could be used automatically without needing the mana manipulation required for spell casting, and it had been easy enough to modify some of those to fit a human body. The more difficult bit had been altering the human body without being able to claim them as a dungeon creature belonging to the core, but even that had proven surprisingly easy.

Simply by spending time within the core’s mana, small bits of that mana would integrate with the humans’ bodies, and that provided the core with an in that could be used to make minor alterations.

Interestingly enough, humans turned out to possess a natural resistance to permanent alterations that were regarded as a negative influence, and while it was possible to push past that, it was not possible to do so without alerting the human.

On the other hand, positive alterations were accepted so readily that it almost seemed as if humans had been primed and readied to be improved by mana, which did not make any sense at all.

After all, if it was possible to achieve perfection, why not push for it immediately, instead of leaving the potential untouched? As far as the core was concerned, that possibility was not even regarded, as it would be too inefficient and absurd.

Thus, the core had tested improving Ivan’s natural strength, reaction speed, and had even healed the man internally in a way that strengthened his life itself. The core had started to realize that there were other energies than just mana, and while one of those seemed to reflect the life force of living creatures, it had not yet found the means of manipulating those energies. Even so, it was readily apparent that certain improvements to living creatures strengthened their life force, and those were precisely the alterations the core had targeted with one of Ivan’s rewards.

There was also the possibility of granting a human a greater reservoir of internal mana, but once again, that seemed to be too much of an alteration. It was difficult to pull off, and even looking into the possibility had shown the core that doing so would be impossible without the human instantly noticing the external influence changing their body.

Even so, the core had already seen that many, many humans possessed reasonable internal mana stores, but were simply unable to sense or manipulate that energy. That was precisely how the core was able to grant innate skills to the humans. There was no need for direct control when a person was simply releasing a switch that had been primed and readied for them. All that was needed was a bit of aim or intent, and the skill would be released.

One thing that the core was hoping to see was a mana user return to its dungeon, as it wanted to test the idea of granting a human a spell. The problem was, a spell could only be used by a human who already was able to manipulate mana on their own, as the core would simply be providing knowledge of a specific method, rather than a pre-formed template that the humans could use.

While the results of the two different methods were largely the same, the difference in how the results were achieved was tremendous. One was essentially giving the human a machine to use, while the other was giving the human the knowledge of how to build and operate the machine on their own. The second option allowed for much greater freedom and control, and potentially much greater power as well.

Not to mention, the skills that the dungeon had prepared used only the humans’ internal mana reserves, while the spells it wanted to test would use ambient mana, just the same as the spells used by both the core and the human mana manipulators.

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Mostly through Avery’s memories, the core had already learned that all human mana manipulators were servants of the gods, but the core was not very certain what to think of the gods. The idea of giving anything away, this human concept of “sacrifice,” was so alien and horrifying to the core that it was completely repelled by the mere thought of the gods or serving them.

Once again, the natural arrogance of a dragon had been inherited by the core, though it remained ignorant of its own origins.

The core simply needed to wait to see how the humans would react to what it was offering them, and continue its experiments from there.

The next day, the core watched as the old man returned to the sewer, this time with two younger men. The older man led the way, and the trio headed straight to the tunnel the old man had visited the previous day.

Unfortunately for the core, none of the three had any control of their mana, and even their mana reserves were inadequate for any sort of innate skill that the core could give them.

The core had already gotten results from all of the body improvements it could offer, which meant that there was nothing more to test with these three men.

The core’s interest waned, as this expedition would prove to be nothing more than something that would hopefully bring more people to the new dungeon beneath the human city. It would have to wait for more humans to visit the two dungeons in order to continue its experiments.

***

Ivan was both frustrated and excited. Of his four sons, three had been able to take a day off to join him, but only two had agreed to do so. Unfortunately, Ivan had not been able to convince Fred to join him.

Fred had always wanted to improve his lot in life, and had also always been a bit embarrassed by his father’s job as an aquarii, so Ivan was not surprised that his son had refused to descend into the sewers. The lad had done well for himself, getting an apprenticeship with a respected carpenter, and he refused to lower himself to the level of doing any sort of untrained labor.

Even so, Ivan wanted to help all of his boys, but already knew that the only way he would ever get Fred into the sewers would be to have his three brothers all work together to convince him.

Ivan quickly found the strange tunnel that had appeared in the depths of the city’s sewers. He kept his eyes peeled for rats or those strange slimes so that Donny and Sam could get some of those odd orbs for themselves.

They were attacked by three packs of rats after entering the tunnel, yet not a single one left anything behind at all.

Also strangely missing were the slimes Ivan had fought before. It almost seemed as though the tunnel had been cleaned out a bit, and Ivan started to worry that he might have already reaped all of the benefits this place could offer.

Just as his fears started to mount further, Ivan caught sight of a bit of a moving reflection up ahead.

Another of the slimes.

He eagerly moved forward, ready to splatter the thing on the walls of the tunnel again.

His club swept forward, only for him to embarrass himself. In his excitement, he had acted too early, and the slime simply twitched backwards and out of the way of Ivan’s club.

Stumbling and falling into the foul stream that flowed through the tunnel, Ivan felt a soft impact on his right calf, only for a burning pain to instantly erupt from the place.

He let out a howl as he flipped around in the filth to see what had happened, only for his flailing to send his left boot right through the slime clinging to his right leg.

A good chunk of the slime was sent flying, and Ivan also managed to break free of the slime that had attacked his leg. He pushed himself upright, and then struck at the slime again with his club.

This time, the wooden weapon connected properly, and the slime was destroyed.

Only when Ivan was panting for air and staring at the mess on the wall did his sons finally catch up to him.

Concerned, they started questioning and examining Ivan, but he ignored their attention and questions and simply looked around to see if one of those orbs of light would finally appear.

His pain and efforts were rewarded, and he saw a ball of light appear right over the location that the slime had been destroyed. Excited, Ivan grabbed Sam and pushed him towards the orb, only for the boy to pass right through the light like it was not even there.

Stunned, Ivan stared at the orb.

It was at this point in time that Sam and Donny finally noticed what their father was focused on instead of them, and they both jumped back at the sight of the ball of light floating just above the stream on the floor.

Both of the boys were close enough that the orb should have been drawn to them, yet it remained still and unmoving. Curious, Ivan stretched his hand forward, and as soon as it was within a pace of the orb, the ball transformed into a beam of light that shot into the older man’s head.

The two boys yelped, and rushed over to check on their father, more concerned for him than ever before, only for him to start laughing hysterically as he pushed them back.

“Sam, I want you to lead the way and clear out any critters that come after us until we get another of those balls. That way, you should be able to get the next one, and then Donny can take a turn after that. I want to see how many we can get for you boys before we head home today.”

“But Dad, didn’t you tell us you needed help cleaning the sewers and that you were falling behind? This tunnel looks completely clean, so we really should move on to finish your section for the day.”

“Boys, this is what I wanted you down here for, so just do as I say. If this goes well, we’ll have plenty of time to clean all of the sewers when we’re done.”

The two boys glanced at each other, but they knew their father well enough to know that they would not be able to convince him to do anything else until he was satisfied.

The truth was that Fred had taken after their father the most, as the two men shared the same stubborn streak.

Sighing, Sam stepped forward. All of the boys had occasionally worked with their father in their childhood, as Ivan had been determined that his boys would be able to find work when they grew up no matter what it took. Even if he failed to get them apprenticeships, they would at least be able to work with him as an aquarii.

After at least fifteen minutes of trudging through the sewers, the three men had come across several more groups of rats, and Sam had dealt with all of them.

At the first fork they found, one of the rats finally left behind an orb. Ivan grew impatient with Sam’s hesitation to get close to the orb, and finally shoved the boy forward.

Just as Ivan had suspected, the orb of light shot into Sam’s head, proving that only the one who delivered the killing blow could collect the reward.

Ivan raised a hand. “Alright, Sam. I want you to take it slow and careful now, got it?”

Sam looked at his father in utter confusion. “Take what slow and careful?”

“Take a step forward, but do it slow. Act like you’re steppin’ on oil or something.”

With another sigh, Sam took a step forward. As he did, Donny was staring at their father, and so he did not see when Sam suddenly shot towards him, sending them both crashing into the wall of the tunnel.

Ivan started laughing harder and harder, ecstatic that things were turning out exactly as he had hoped. The boys picked themselves up off the floor, Donny angry, and Sam thoroughly confused.

Already wanting to nip the argument in the bud, Ivan stepped forward and ordered, “Alright now, Donny, it’s your turn. Get up front and don’t stop until you get an orb, too. Don’t worry about the direction. Just go whichever way you want.”

Donny was still upset with Sam for knocking him into the sewage on the floor, but after hearing their father’s request, the young man stifled his irritation and stepped forward, hefting his own club.

Another twenty minutes passed before Donny was able to get an orb, which made Ivan question his success the previous day. Had there just been more orbs? Was it because there were three of them together this time? Were there diminishing rewards? He had no idea.

Donny did not fight touching the orb, and by this point in time, Sam had started to put some things together, and so he simply stayed silent until they could see how Donny would react to the infusion of light.

“Remember, Donny, nice and slow now, got it?”

Donny nodded, curious as to why his father was being so serious about the situation, as well as why Sam had remained silent for so long and was staring so intently at Donny.

A hesitant step saw Donny stumble slightly, but not nearly as much as Sam had.

Once again, Ivan started laughing. “Alright boys, I might not know what’s going on, but seeing how these lights can help us out, I want you two to each pick a tunnel and get as many as you can before we need to head back. We’re going to get your brothers down here as soon as possible to have them get some of this as well.

“Well? What’s the matter? Get moving!”