Yur could feel her end coming. Her death itself was not unexpected, but she had assumed that she would die with the destruction of the planet, not devoured by some mysterious entity which was slowly taking over her own body.

Already, she could feel that Anba’s allegiance had been taken. He was no longer part of the human pantheon, but was loyal to another who held control of his Concept and merely allowed the god access to that power.

Unlike the other gods, Yur had interacted with the older dragons when they had first arrived. At that time, they had not possessed any control of the Concepts of her planet, but had instead controlled Concepts that belonged to another. Through those dragons, Yur had learned that Concepts were constant, but their sources were not. Every planet possessed the same Concepts, and once they were mastered, their power could be used anywhere. Additionally, through the dragons, Yur had learned that it was possible to offer others access to a controlled Concept. This was what the kaiser dragons did for their offspring and subordinates.

Yur was a goddess, which meant that she was unable to gain access to other Concepts without some sort of change in the faith that she received. On top of that, even gaining greater control of the Concepts she did control was nearly impossible. As an advantage, Yur had never needed to worry about mortality or losing her power. She was the planet itself, and so as long as the planet remained, she would endure.

Or so she had thought.

Yur could finally feel herself losing control of bits of the planet as more and more dungeons appeared all across the main continent.

In some ways, what was even worse was that through her Concept of Life, she could sense that creatures which had long since ceased to exist were starting to return.

Once again, elves walked the earth, and dwarves roamed the underground. Not only that, she could feel herself very, very slowly lose control of the Concept of life as this unknown being not only brought back extinct races and species, but created entirely new ones.

Unfortunately, while she could sense these creatures’ existence, she was unable to understand what they were, or what they came from. All she knew was that they had been created, and nothing more, as she had not contributed to their creation.

Yur knew she would disappear, replaced by whoever or whatever was slowly devouring her.

While she resisted and would fight tooth and nail to endure, the ancient goddess suspected that she would most likely fail. In the end, she did not even know who or what was devouring her, and yet in just a few short years, she had lost almost a tenth of her being, and the rate was accelerating.

With how things were progressing, Yur estimated that she only had about a hundred years remaining.

For the first time, she envied the dragons their ability to move from planet to planet, as it meant that they would always endure.

While it had been a few years since Yur had lost her last Saintess, she had seen no reason to replace the woman. What would it matter whether Yur had a representative or not for her last few decades?

There were still times when Yur raged against her fate, much like when she had learned that healing magic had been stolen from her. While Anba could potentially have given his followers healing magic as well, he had always understood his proper place and had never tried to intrude upon Yur’s territory.

Yur had reacted very badly that day, and she had later understood that part of the excessive reaction had been due to the fact that that moment had been the first time she had understood that she was in the process of dying.

Even so, Yur was a truly ancient being, even by the standard of the dragons, and change itself was almost always fascinating to her, especially unexpected changes.

If elves, dwarves, and other creatures had returned, would their pantheons return as well? Some of those gods and goddesses had been quite close to Yur, and she had found herself missing them.

Regardless, Yur felt that her final years would not be at all boring, especially after she had surrendered herself to her impending fate. All she could do was watch how things developed.

***

The core felt incredibly conflicted, and was not sure how to proceed. It had been several years since it had started to create greater and greater numbers of dungeons in every sort of diverse climate and region it could find. Its mastery of the Concepts of life and growth had improved dramatically, and it was even edging out the god who had seemed so immovable just a few years ago.

The problem was that the core was overwhelmed and had started to miss too many details, even with it automating so many processes. While each sub-core provided a bit more processing power, with nearly a hundred dungeons spread across more than half of the continent, there was so much happening that the core was simply unable to devote any of its attention to its experiments, and progress was starting to stagnate.

It needed a way to have more thoughts, or a way to further automatize what happened within its purview.

The worst part was the fact that not being able to devote attention to the problem was preventing the core from finding a solution. It felt that it needed to essentially ignore about half of the dungeons in existence in order to free up enough focus to find a solution.

Giving up anything that the core had obtained for itself was unthinkable, and it refused to entertain the possibility at all.

Still, the lack of focus and the increasing number of oversights meant that the thought kept returning to the core with increasing frequency, despite its repulsion at the concept.

Of all things, it was overhearing a conversation between Azkthak and the core’s own dragon, who had needed to be moved down to a deeper level of the dungeon.

“Child, your growth is impressive. You are already twice the height and four times the weight you were when I first met you. However, has your magic improved apace? Have you been able to sense any Concepts yet?”

The core had ignored the conversation after that. The eldar dragon had been quite accurate in its assessment, though there had been a slight inaccuracy, which of course the core could determine. Still, the discrepancy was so slight to be practically negligible.

What stood out to the core were the measurements.

It had always tracked the strength, size, weight, and power of its various creatures, as well as the humans that visited the dungeons. However, there had never been any metric, as the measurements used by humans were arbitrary and utterly useless.

However, what if the average member of a species was given a value of 1, and the range spread from there? There would be a distinct comparison and metric to use, instead of measuring each individual separately, as the core had been doing.

Even if a perfectly average human had a weight of 1.2, a height of 1.1, a strength of 1, and a speed of .7, they would still be an average human with an overall score of 1.

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This would allow the core the means to instantly measure and evaluate the various creatures in its dungeons, as well as the humans visiting. If an average human was used as a base measurement, the core could quickly determine appropriate creatures for each section of a dungeon, and would also be able to more easily evaluate the humans’ progress.

With all of the measurements already available, and all of the information prepared, the core immediately started implementing its new metrics in a specific dungeon, while evaluating the amount of attention that was required to oversee it.

As always, the core felt that there was a need to test various options, and so several variations of the measurements and standardizations that would be used in a handful of different dungeons.

Once the metrics were implemented, the core was surprised to discover just how much of an improvement there was in its ability to oversee each of the dungeons, even before it was possible to determine which one was the best option.

This could very well change everything…

***

Aaron did not know what was happening. Things had changed while he had been happily testing things out with his abilities and his new body, as well as his ability to change from one body to another.

While the form he had been granted by the master of the dungeons had been incredible, controlling the skeleton of a dead dragon did not lend itself to fine motor control that Aaron needed for some of what he had been practicing.

On the other hand, it had been amazing for getting rid of rude guests who did not appreciate a good dance.

Aaron was always able to sense when there were new guests entering the dungeon, though he rarely entertained them himself. There were so many others who could handle such tasks, and so few of the guests were qualified to enjoy Aaron’s personal attention.

However, when the newest guests arrived, Aaron not only sensed their presence in the dungeon, but also an automatic knowledge of their strength.

Unfortunately, while that knowledge was automatic, it was incredibly confusing. Why were all of them rated as between one and two, but with so much more to the numbers? It reminded Aaron of when he had once heard a merchant try to explain something about partial numbers.

How did that even make sense? You could have one or two. There was nothing between.

Also, why were the numbers constantly fluctuating? Why were they constantly increasing and decreasing, depending on the person?

For the first time since Aaron had lost his flesh, he felt pain. How could he have a headache without an actual brain?

The confusion and pain continued to increase, as the endless numbers associated with each of the guests overwhelmed Aaron’s mind and ability to process. He was lucky that the core was actively evaluating the various systems it was implementing, and thus it quickly noticed Aaron’s state of agony.

***

It took a while for the core to come to a conclusion, but the final analysis was that once again, other creatures were too weak to measure up to the core’s standards.

The core started simplifying the numbers that Aaron perceived as the overall strength of the humans who had entered the dungeon. How could numbers as large as a ten-thousandth of a whole provide any real information? On top of that, why was the active evaluation of the humans’ strength so confusing? The creatures were stronger when they were well rested, well fed, and well watered, and they weakened over time after sating any of those needs.

Of course, there was a bit of a delay. When humans drank, they did not instantly hydrate their bodies, but that was part of the reason for the constant fluctuations. They were real-time measurements.

This incident did make the core reevaluate all of its current systems. If it could simplify things to the point that they made sense for a human, it would mean that even more of the core’s focus would be freed up and made available for other endeavors.

This seemed like a reasonable standard to use, and the core carried out the changes in all of the dungeons that were being tested, and it immediately felt a burden ease even more than before.

It was at this moment that the core had an epiphany. If simplifying and evaluating things on a numerical standard could make things so much easier for itself, then what about for others?

***

When Aaron came back to his senses, there was a massive feeling of relief. He had felt overwhelmed by all of the information that had bombarded him, and it had made his mind ache in a way he had never felt before.

He rose back to his feet from where he had clattered to the floor. He was just thankful that he did not need to worry about his bones disconnecting or losing them.

Well, except for that one time…

Deliberately refocusing, Aaron turned back to what he had been working on when the newest guests had arrived and his mind had been assaulted by their information.

He was still chasing after perfection in his spells, and while he had not achieved that with any of the spells he had been given, he had made significant progress.

As time had passed, he had found himself returning more and more to the first spell the small dragon had demonstrated, Lava Burst. He had seen the potential the spell held, even when no more mana was used than Aaron had used for his first attempt, and that had given Aaron a goal to strive towards. If he could achieve even half the effect that he had seen the dragon pull off, Aaron would be proud of himself.

As he focused on the spell, bringing the chant to his mind and his lips, a strange number again appeared in Aaron’s mind.

Lava Burst

Level 3

At the same time, Aaron automatically knew that perfecting the spell would come at level 100.

What was going on? Where was this knowledge coming from? Why had it appeared?

Not for the first time, Aaron wished that he had someone to talk to or ask questions. It would just put him at ease, if nothing else.

He missed Edgar. He had been such a good listener.

Uncertain of what else he could do, and hoping to distract himself, Aaron refocused on the spell and the latest improvements he had come up with. Perfecting the spell meant that there was no mana wasted or leaked, so Aaron had been paying attention to places where he felt the mana was thin or weak. He felt that those weaknesses were a sign of mana leaking from that particular point in the manipulation to produce the spell, and since shoring up those weaknesses had strengthened the spell, Aaron persisted in shoring up those particular points.

He cast the spell again, slowly going through the chant in time with the mana manipulation. He knew he could cast the spell much faster, but he was focusing on improving his skills, not using the spell in combat.

Nearly five breaths passed before the spell was released, and Aaron was pleased to see a column of lava rise from the floor that rose to his chest, a marked improvement from the pathetic burble he had first summoned with the spell.

As the spell faded, another number entered Aaron’s mind.

Lava Burst

Level 4

It appeared that he was right about how he needed to go about improving, and it also appeared that these messages were going to mark his progress.

Odd.

It was times like this that Aaron wished he could still sigh. A good shrug just was not the same without a sigh to go with it.

He looked down at his body, and seeing the draconic skeleton also reminded him of some of the other ways in which he had changed.

It was possible to use another human skeleton, but the truth was that the closer the bones were to Aaron’s original skeleton, the more he felt that it was not his own.

He shrugged his wings, and looked down at his massive limbs.

Level 103

Again with the numbers. Fortunately, since they were accompanied by a bit of knowledge, Aaron understood that his current body was as strong as 103 average humans combined.

He puffed up a bit at the knowledge. That felt quite impressive!

He then wilted again, as he thought back to the dragon who had taught him mana manipulation. If a dragon skeleton granted Aaron the strength of 103 average humans, then just how powerful was that small dragon? What about the larger one?

In the end, Aaron was still just a minor character in a much larger world. Would he ever be able to step onto a larger stage or take a bigger role?