The group spent another hour in the tower, destroying golems for their salt and searching for more symbols, until they decided to leave having discovered four more runes on what they were pretty sure was the outermost wall of the labyrinth. The second rune they found was a flowing teardrop shape, again formed from three lines. With a test, they realized it created water, which was fortunate since they were running out of it.
The other three they found simultaneously, as Evelyn's face nearly burned off. Carved on one wall around a corner, there were three symbols, each with a circle around them, connected together with two lines. It spat out a pillar of flames for a few seconds every few minutes, and the only reason Evelyn still had a face was because Michelle had managed to push the fire away with her tattoo and Audrey managing to cool down the air around them with the ice symbol.
With some more tests, they determined that one symbol created fire, the other made wind and the third could activate the symbols connected to it. With that finished, and the group was following their grass blade path out of the labyrinth, they came upon a discussion on what they should do with their new knowledge and the dust.
"I'm going sell the dust to the helpers guild. They might pay a good amount of money for it and the symbols we know." Evelyn said. It was the whole reason why she stepped foot in the tower, so she would definitely take the opportunity.
"I don't think that's a good idea." Michelle said, baffling Evelyn. "The god gave these tattoos and the dust to us after we passed through its trials. I doubt the god would want us to throw them to others for money."
"You do realize that the 'god' gave children the tattoo. I don't think it cares were much who has the dust, as long as they use them."
"The trial probably wasn't built yet when the kids went there. They definitely couldn't have walked through the first labyrinth unharmed, without light and in just a few minutes. The god probably made it to make sure only responsible people can get the tattoos and dust." Audrey said.
"So we make sure the people we sell the dust to are responsible enough in handling it. The god deemed us responsible, so we are responsible enough to sell the dust responsibly." Evelyn argued confidently.
"Ok, fine! You can sell your dust if you really want to. But leave some of it for me, I'm going to need it soon."
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I wanted to make the third floor into something other than a labyrinth, and maybe even try my plan with the animals. But before that, I would need to build the stairs from the second to the third floor. I decided to build it right next to the previous staircase, but seperated by a wall. The only way in was through the longest path in the labyrinth, one that went around the entire floor.
As for what would be the final challenge before ascending to the higher floor, I decided to make a boss. A single stone golem with three salt hearts instead of one, and six spheres, each with a different rune carved into them. Whatever group would face it, would have a fun time dodging the magic attacks and the stones, while trying to break all three hearts. As an afterthought, I decided to put a few flasks filled with carbon spheres, inside each of the golems spherical fists.
With that done, I fixed the destroyed golems, and went into my plans of creating life. I wanted some good pets, and the third floor would be full with my attempts to create them.
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The next day, after breakfast, Evelyn prepared to make the long-ish trip to the closest helpers hall, which was about a ten mile walk away, in a small city outside of a god's domain. Evelyn would introduce them to the amazing unnamed god that let those worthy use and spread its power everywhere. Then when that was done, she would continue visiting the tower and sell its goods.
Three painful hours later Evelyn finally could see the city in the distance. It was odd, unlike Valessa, which was built from densely packed tall stone buildings and surrounded by a circular wall, Neork was spread out over a vast area, a seemingly unorganized collection of one and two story tall wooden houses. Neork reminded Evelyn more of her village than of any city she had imagined. Neork didn't even have any wall, instead the density of the buildings next to the gravel road increased along with the stench. It was a difference caused by not living under a god.
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After a few more minutes of walking around the city, and asking for directions, Evelyn finally stumbled across the helpers hall, and stepped through the main door.
"Hello, how may I help you?" A grumbled old woman asked from behind the receptionist desk.
"Morning. I'm here to sell your guild something you will find interesting." Evelyn answered.
"No."
"No?"
"No. Look kid, whatever you are looking to sell to us, I can assure you that I neither have the authority to give the guild's money to people, nor does the guild need anything you might sell. If you have nothing else, please leave." The old woman drawled.
"But I have something you really want." Evelyn said. "If you can't buy it, then tell me who can." In reply, the old woman pointed her finger at Evelyn, who slowly started floating out of the door, which opened to let Evelyn through. In a slight panic, Evelyn decided to improvise her sales pitch. The previous day, after she and the others had left the tower, Evelyn had practiced shaping her mana in enough detail to push a symbol through her tattoo. Floating in the air, she decided to do so now. Evelyn tried her best to concentrate, and just before the old woman would have slammed the door in Evelyn's face, a fist sized flame burst into existence above Evelyns tattoo, nearly setting her hair alight.
The old woman released her hold on Evelyn. "How did you do that?" The woman asked as if she had just seen something utterly impossible, which to her knowledge she had.
"That's what I came here to sell. I can give you helpers the powers of clerics, outside of a god's domain." Evelyn said.
Once the old woman gathered herself from her shock, she told Evelyn to wait there before stepping out of the room.
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Michelle had the role of teaching again. After the kids had gone to the tower, she and the kids parents had agreed that it might be a good idea for them to wait a few days before continuing school. Especially since Dwin had lost his arm, though according to him he had felt fine ever since the god covered his stump with the dust.
Now the entire class was gathered again, and Michelle had a new idea for a lesson plan. "All of you did something very stupid a few days ago. You went to a tower, and the domain of a spirit proclaimed to be evil. Though we now know that the spirit isn't evil, but instead a god, we will go over what spirits are, again." The class of six kids groaned at that.
"After that, we'll go over the responsible use of your new tattoos, and I'll teach you what else they can be used for" Michelle said, as she pushed the flowing teardrop shape of water through her tattoo, before freezing the resulted water with the ice symbol. Six pairs of eyes widened as Michelle smiled. "But first, what are the five categories of spirits, and their definitions?"
Two hands slowly raised, and Michelle pointed at one of them, a young boy named Edwin. "God spirits, they help people in turn for their mana. Good, or nature spirits, they help the life around them. Neutral spirits, they don't really do anything. Evil spirits harm or kill the life around them, and demon spirits kill people."
"Good, so can someone now tell me what might have happened if you had entered the domain of an actual evil spirit?"
None of the kids were willing to raise their hands up. They knew the answer, and Michelle could clearly see that they regretted their actions. But she decided to drive the final nail in the coffin anyway. "You would have died." She said, and a few seconds later, "And now that you understand how foolishly you acted in stepping foot inside the domain of a being capable of doing anything within that space, let's talk about the gift our new god gave all of you."
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It was hard playing god with life, even more so since life was hard to understand. Even though I could sense every single molecule, each and every atom, even the individual electrons, protons neutrons and just barely what might be the up and down quarks composing the latter two, understanding how they all worked together to make life was probably impossible.
I could focus on a cell, and make an exact duplicate of all its atoms and electrons, even its molecular bonds. But no matter what I did, there was something wrong with the cell. It would live, eat and even multiply. But none of my self made cells would gather any magic at all. And I wanted my animals to have their own mana so that they'd come up with their own ideas on how to use my tattoos. I didn't want to concentrate on multiple battles simultaneously across all the floors I'd one day have in my tower. I wanted my tower to work as autonomously as possible, and for that I'd need magic using animals.
The problem became even more clear when I tried copying larger forms of life. When I tried copying a crow, it'd just stay still, pretty much only beating its heart, breathing, reacting to pain and dilate its pupils according to the light amount. It was useful enough that I could determine what wavelengths of light it could see, and realize that it was incredibly dark inside my tower. But other than that, the crow was effectively braindead.
I was clearly missing some vital information, something was missing from the crow that I couldn't sense, and it was completely messing my plans, since the third floor was now entirely full with inanimate life. In my eyes, they were no different from the second floor golems. I would definitely need to figure out why.