The core felt quite pleased with its latest developments. A group of far more powerful soldiers had visited the fiery realm in the depths of the dungeon where the core had started introducing its latest attempts to groom humans in order to extract their full potential, and while several humans had been lost during the fighting, the survivors had clearly been extremely excited about their gifts.

Even better, the core had finally found someone with a natural affinity for manipulating fire mana, which had presented the opportunity to test out its newly designed human spells. That had produced a very interesting reaction from the humans.

In other directions, the dungeon under the human settlement—Guilone?—had started having a few more humans visiting it, and the core was happy to see that none of the humans were showing any negative reactions to the strengthening it had been providing them. While none of the visitors there had yet possessed a natural mana affinity the core could use, its second “farm” was still proceeding nicely. The “crops” were being well taken care of, and the core would soon see its first “harvests.”

The core felt it was ready to start another dungeon, though it had not yet found an appropriate location. It was important to have the dungeons rather accessible to the humans, as keeping them hidden would defeat the entire purpose of the dungeons.

However, the recent harvests the core had enjoyed had greatly boosted its perception range, and it had even started to pick up on human activity within the mountains it had found in one direction. That activity suggested that there were likely more human settlements in that direction, and given the fact that the core had noticed some violence between groups of humans in and near the mountains, it had come to believe that there were different herds of humans. Could this new herd offer the core new options?

It had not taken long at all for the core to decide that it would place its next dungeon within the territory that this second herd of humans used. It would be good to test if they were a new species, or just a second herd.

By observing various creatures, the core had learned that even while different creatures shared a similar external form, such as birds, the differences between the creatures could be astounding and allow for endless variables on a given theme.

Already the core had developed both air and fire-affinitied birds, and had found that there were many, many more options available, depending on the specific species of bird that it started with.

Was it possible that there were different species of humans? While the core had already seen humans use magic of different affinities, what if there were possibilities of other things?

While the core had gained additional knowledge and memories from its recent harvests, none of the soldiers had been able to offer it much variety. All of the soldiers had lived similar lives and come from similar backgrounds, and things had reached the point that the core would only barely skim through the memories it obtained to see if there was anything new before simply moving on.

No, what the core wanted to obtain was another priest like Avery, or maybe even one of the “nobles” it had learned about. People who had access to history, magic, and other such matters were far more intriguing to the core. Even more important was the idea of the gods it had learned about from Avery, such as Hidde.

The core was very curious about the gods, and supposedly, there were six of them, each ruling over different aspects of the world: Hidde, the god of battle; Erdil, the goddess of hunting; Anba, the god of the sun and the sky; Urdan, the god of magic; Ixel, the god of death; and finally, Yur, the mother goddess of the earth who had given birth to all known life.

Yur in particular rankled the core, as the idea of something possessing the earth itself in a similar manner to the core felt completely unacceptable. Was the core actually sharing its territory, its possession, with another? Never!

However, the core also understood from Avery’s memories that these gods were extremely powerful, far more so than any of the humans or living creatures, with the possible exception of dragons. Naturally, this meant that the core needed to tread carefully to avoid being destroyed, and that meant that it needed more information.

Unfortunately, it appeared that by granting the humans more power, especially the magic spell, the humans around the dungeon had moved to block the magic users—the priests—from entering the dungeon, and the core did not know how to change that, other than by offering additional options.

Some of the soldiers had left the region with the dungeon as soon as they had returned, and the core noticed that the new magic user was carefully escorted to the largest gathering of humans it had found, which seemed to be their main “nest.”

After some sort of interactions that the core had ignored due to lack of interest, it had immediately noticed when the soldiers had returned, or at least, most of them had.

From that moment on, the humans started making drastic changes to many of their previously normal activities. For starters, the magic users were all forced away from the dungeon.

After that, the core observed as the camp was split in two, and some people started leaving, while more started to arrive. While initially confused, as weeks passed, the core realized that the humans had split into two different camps; older, more experienced and more powerful humans, and then the young, weaker humans that had been visiting the core all along.

This split became more and more apparent as the humans continued to enter the dungeon, as people from both groups would pass through the first levels of the dungeon, with the weak members conducting all of the fighting. After that, the weaker humans would split off and return to the surface, while the stronger ones would continue to the chamber of fire.

While the core had already completed additional chambers, none of the humans had shown themselves capable of passing the fire chamber, which meant that the core had no reason to try to open anything further. It first needed to groom the humans into becoming stronger so that it could let them challenge more difficult chambers and creatures.

On the surface, the core’s range of perception had already spread far beyond the forest that held the dungeon, and as the range increased further, the core had noticed that its affinities had started shifting.

The more affinitied mana it cleansed, the stronger its own affinities became. However, while the core’s water, darkness, fire, and earth affinities were all continuing to grow stronger, its life affinity had reached some sort of limit. No matter how much life affinitied mana the core cleansed from the forest and the surrounding farming regions, its life affinity did not grow even the slightest bit stronger. There might be a new “depth” to the affinity, but the core could feel that there was something more that remained just out of reach, which was infuriating.

There was something more to the life affinity that the core could not touch, yet it could somehow barely brush the edge of it. Every time the core tried to push and understand what lay beyond its life affinity, whatever it was seemed to pull away. Only when the core was focused elsewhere did that mystery return close enough to almost be touched.

There was a feeling of something building, but the core could not understand what that was, or what it was leading to. All it knew was that something was holding it back, and that could not be allowed to continue.

Weeks passed. More humans entered the two dungeons. More humans died, allowing the core to reap the harvests of its farms. No one had yet died in the sewer dungeon, but that was just a matter of time, given how news of that dungeon had started to spread.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Weeks turned into months. Winter came and passed, and just as spring was starting to arrive, the barrier that had been holding the core’s life affinity from increasing disappeared.

The moment that happened, the core understood. It no longer had an affinity for life aspected mana, but had instead touched upon something more and greater; its affinity had grown to the point that the core had finally touched upon the concept of life.

The moment this happened, something fundamental transformed within the core. No longer was the core using mana and its affinity to life to control things, it was able to tap into some of the foundational rules of the world and touch upon the most basic aspects of life.

Mana was not an end, but a tool that allowed lesser beings to touch upon the tiniest fraction of the power of these rules of the world and use that tool to make changes to the world.

In contrast, touching upon a concept allowed the core the potential to rewrite those rules. No longer would the core be limited to magic that was permitted by the rules, it could create its own rules and allow for new, unique magic to come into existence.

Days passed while the core was lost in the revelations brought about by touching upon the concept of life. The core came to understand that while it had touched upon the ocean of the concept of life, there remained a vast, seemingly infinite breadth and depth to the concept that the core could not yet touch, though it was clear that there were others with territory in the ocean.

Uncertain as to how best utilize this new power, the core could only resort to the same thing as always for moving forward: trial and error. It could only try to use this new power and see what was possible and what was not.

When the core examined the plants or creatures of its domain, it felt that there was a new path of endless possibilities that it could take with each creature, as the previous limits that had existed because of the initial characteristics of the life form no longer existed.

The core took two of the most basic creatures in its domain; a rabbit and a bird. By observing the two of them, the core was able to sense a new option presented by touching upon the concept of life. While it still appeared that making life was beyond the core, merging life was not.

Carefully and slowly, the core pressed the two creatures together on the most basic level possible. It could feel conflicts, resistance, and incompatibilities between the two, and yet the core was also able to find ways to easily resolve each of those obstacles through its new life concept.

Not only did the core need to merge aspects of the two bodies, it also needed to combine aspects of the shells that held the souls of the creatures.

Ignorant of the fact that nearly a month had passed, the core eventually ended up with a winged rabbit—a skvader—in its dungeon.

Amazingly, the creature showed absolutely no problems, and the core could even sense that the new creature carried the same potential to be improved and altered as all of the naturally occurring beasts that the core had already incorporated into its dungeons.

Observing its first true creation, the core instantly felt two things. The first was that it had gained greater control of the concept of life, seizing a slightly larger portion of that endless ocean for itself.

The other thing was the infinite possibilities that had suddenly opened for it. No longer would it need to have its creatures follow a natural progression of their abilities or even the natural limits of their potential, as all of that could be rewritten.

It could create ants the size of a bear!

There could be white bears of ice, instead of only bears with earth or fire affinities!

It could allow a mere snake the potential to become a dragon, the most powerful creature the core had ever learned of!

In fact, while it still remained beyond reach, the core could sense the potential to eventually form new life from something as primitive as earth and water, though it had no idea what to do about the soul needed to animate a new life form. That would remain something to consider in the future.

For the moment, the core needed to first look at how it could take advantage of its new abilities and implement them in its creatures, and maybe even in the humans that it was developing.

***

Yur was different from the other gods. She was not some power brought about by the merging of concepts and faith, but was the result of the earth itself combining with various concepts. She ruled the concepts of life and growth, and touched upon the concepts of stability and prosperity.

She even brushed upon the concept of death, given that it was part of the cycle of life that continued upon her body.

The fact that Yur had come into being with the planet itself, though only truly gained consciousness with the first sapient worship and faith, meant that she had a different understanding of her place in the universe. She oversaw the cycle of life, and thus had no illusions of the immortality that the other gods touted. She knew that even a planet was born, would grow and mature, and eventually die, and her with it.

This was why Yur had not felt particularly disturbed by losing a portion of the earth, her body. While mysterious, such a development simply meant that her death might come about a bit earlier than expected, and even that was a remote possibility.

However, when Yur sensed that another had intruded upon the concept of life that she ruled, that changed everything. Only when a god managed to incorporate another concept into their being, or a new god arose, would control of a concept slip away from those who already wielded that power.

For eons, Yur had ruled the concept of life, only ceding a portion of control of the concept to Anba, as the god of the sun and sky, ruled another necessary aspect of life on the planet. While Erdil was goddess of the hunt, she touched upon the concepts of death, prosperity, conflict, and stability. Erdil’s domain was about prosperity and continuing life by ending other life, not life itself.

The appearance of another god stealing control of Yur’s concept of life could mean a division in the existing pantheon, or even the creation of a new pantheon. Either way, it meant new divine conflict, which Yur never liked to see. Such battles always saw the earth harmed, and while that did not weaken Yur herself, there was no reason for her to enjoy seeing her body ravaged.

Yur reached out with her senses, trying to find who or what had encroached upon one of her primary concepts. However, just as she had lost control of a portion of the earth itself, which was her body, she had simply lost control of a portion of the concept of life. There was no touch of divinity, and she could not sense any changes in any of the child gods that formed the current pantheon. There was not even the spark of divinity that indicated the birth of a new god.

No, something had stolen Yur’s concept, the domain of the gods themselves that no others were allowed to trespass upon, without being a god themselves.

Had another eldar dragon risen up?

Yur started to get increasingly frantic, but all of the dragons were accounted for, and there were none that had recently reached the beasts’ peak and broken through to the realm of the gods and become a new eldar dragon.

There were no changes among dragonkind, nor among the gods. This was something new, and also outside of Yur’s purview. She was blind to this development, and that was also new.

For the first time in her entire existence, Yur felt a flash of fear.

Only moments had passed since Yur had sensed the theft, and while Yur was essentially a timeless entity, she was still a god, and thus capable of processing more thoughts than a mortal would experience in their entire lifetime in less than a second.

Already, she could feel Anba racing towards her divine avatar that she maintained with whatever pantheon ruled the planet at the moment. The fact that Anba had not merely reached out to Yur, but was “physically” approaching her indicated just how disturbed the young god was.

Clearly Anba did not have the experience to remain calm in the face of such a development. After all, he was only about 30,000 years old, having come into being with a human religion. After the human pantheon had seen to the genocide of the non-human races, the loss of those races’ faith had seen the death of the non-human pantheons, which had increased the strength of the human gods by an unfathomable degree. After all, the more shared a concept was, the less control each individual could wield. This was what made Yur such a powerful goddess: she wielded the majority of control of two different concepts, and ruling two concepts was a powerful thing. In contrast, Erdil and Urdan did not rule a single concept, which was why both of them were comparatively weak divinities. Touching upon more concepts was less powerful than ruling a single one.

Anba had never experienced the sensation of losing a portion of his control of a concept, and clearly, that loss had made him lose all control.

Yur quickly settled her own fear. This was not the time to dwell upon new, disturbing emotions. This was time to find out what had happened, and the best way to do so was in guiding a fledgling god to perform that duty on Yur’s behalf.

The young were always so malleable.