“Yeah, that’s what’s wrong,” she hissed, trusting Rhamiel could hear her voice.

The tree monster thing trundled forward, its large arms swinging back and forth as it approached the clearing. Whatever this thing was, it was slow and big, a combination that felt wrong to the Core. Its giant stride should have been able to eat through the distance quickly, yet this thing was laboriously slow.

“What is this thing?” Rhamiel asked her, careful to modulate its voice’s location and pitch. It did not want this thing to notice Joselin or it because its voice gave it away. “And how can we make it go away?”

“We can’t,” Joselin answered through clenched teeth. “It is a Goblin Dryad, a demon in the tree’s form. I don’t think we can make it go away.”

“Okay, what can we do then? Just wait for it to go away on its own? Do you think that will wo- oh, here it comes,” Rhamiel narrated.

The Unhallowed Tree stepped into the clearing, and a new Prompt appeared in Rhamiel’s vision.

Warning! A monster is inside your settlement! Defend yourself!

Monsters can sense your Core and will work their way towards you. Though most monsters will only get a vague idea of your location, they will eventually find you if not stopped.

First Invading Monster Note: You will only be alerted when a Civilian of your city sees a monster and recognizes it as such. Some monsters may not trigger the previous Warning due to their innate traits.

It was helpful and explained how it did not get a Warning when a monster entered its Domain. It felt a little wrong that it did not get a warning when a monster entered its Domain, but it could be another way of proving that it was meant to work together with its Civilians.

“Rhamiel, any ideas?” Joselin asked, carefully peeking around her cover to observe the Monster. It stopped a little away from any of the buildings, staring at them without changing expression. The Core got an eerie feeling from the thing the more he observed it, a tree surrounding a captured thing.

“Nope, I got nothing,” the Core stated. “The only thing I am thinking about is that thing trapped in the tree’s center. It looks kind of gross.”

“Do NOT feel sorry for that thing,” Joselin growled. That was a goblin that sacrificed itself for more strength by willingly sacrificing several of its tribes before merging with an Unhallowed Tree. This thing is some of the worst evil imaginable, and… they should be avoided,” Joselin said slowly, looking at the improvised spear she had made and smiling at it. Then the smile vanished, and she shook her head.

“I think I could kill it now if I had my bow. With Outer Hope Weapon, I could probably deal Great Bane Damage to it. But I don’t think I can get in close enough with this spear to kill the squishy goblin center,” Joselin grimaced. Do you think the wooden spear could damage the wood parts of the thing?” she asked the air, more out of curiosity than seeking actual answers from the Core.

“Maybe,” Rhamiel responded anyway. “But-” the Core trailed off, considering the only other thing it could offer the young Elf.

“What?” she asked carefully, shifting her posture to make it easier to move around. She only slightly leaned against the storage shed she was hiding behind in case the Goblin Dryad came closer. What a terrible name for a creature. It was wordy and unnecessarily long; maybe it should come up with a shorter name.

“Rhamiel,” Joselin said through gritted teeth.” This is not the time to be spacing out here; we have a real problem that is getting closer to your buildings,” she hissed.

“Oh, you’re right,” Rhamiel replied suddenly, snapping its attention to the problem at hand. “We can’t have the thing break our buildings. I mean, my Drone spent a while building those.”

Joselin groaned under her breath, “And it’s coming for us, right?”

The Core paused, confused. “Why would it be looking for us?”

“It is just the way it is. Monsters like that,” she paused to look around the building, peeking at the five-meter-tall Monster and glaring at it. “Wander around until they find any settlement with people in it and either attack on their own or find other monsters to join them in the slaughter. I’ve helped repel a horde of monsters that had Hellhounds, Puppeteer Spiders, Goblins, and a single Waterfall Elemental. It was brutal; we lost eleven people.”

Joselin went silent as she watched the thing move around. Rhamiel could see her hands shake as she held that poor excuse of a weapon. With his near-perfect perception within his Domain, he could also see her lips twitch in a hateful expression, her eyebrows furrow, and her steadily leaning head down to readjust her center of gravity.

“Wait, you can’t just run in there,” Rhamiel told her harshly.

At Rhamiel’s words, she overextended her balance forward and caught herself against the shed’s wall. After carefully and quietly restraining her breath, she hissed, “Why not?”

Something in the Core told it this was not a good idea; too many factors put the battle in the Tree Goblin thing’s favor. “Because… that thing could probably smash you in one hit.”

“Okay, then I won’t get hit,” Joselin argued.

“Oh, I hadn’t thought about that,” Rhamiel thought. Well, there has to be a better option than just running out there and poking it with your stick.”

“Would you like to do it?” Joselin asked, then sighed. “Oh, wait, I’m sorry, I forgot you had no arms.”

The Core fumed, “That is not fair. It is not my fault that I was not born a grotesque amalgamation of body fluids, limbs, and lump that holds it all together called a torso.”

Joselin furrowed her brows, “grotesque?”

“Eehhh,” Rhamiel said indifferently. “Sort of, you are not nearly as pretty as me, but that thing is worse. Can we discuss tactics?”

She seemed stunned momentarily before she released a huff and said, “fiiine. Do you have any ideas?”

The Core thought about it but only had variations on the same idea. “Okay, do you know how this thing feels about shiny things?”

Joselin blinked, “Uh, I don’t know. Goblins enjoy shiny things, but this thing is less Goblin and more tree now; it likely won’t like them as much as it used to. Why?”

“Then we go to option two?” The Core asked, moving on from using its sapphire to distract the thing before she thought it was better than its other idea. I will distract it. When you see it do anything besides walk forward, please feel free to attack. Maybe your Great Bane thing will kill it quickly.”

“What are you doing?” Joselin asked before it tuned her out.

It looked to its only Drone and made its decision. The Summon Drone Perk stated that it could take a hit, but it would be nearly useless in combat, but it did not need to be. It gave its Drone its orders and waited, cursing the Drones slow pace.

A few moments passed, and Rhamiel watched its Drones progress and the Goblin Dryad as it got right up to one of its houses. It raised one of its branch-like arms and pushed at the house curiously, making the entire thing shake and crumble at the abuse.

The creature groaned, the sound like splintering wood and a guttural yowl. It raised its hand higher and brought it down on the house, the entire thing shattering and crumbling away at the thing’s attack. It barely had to push to break down Rhamiel’s house, and that pissed it off. It swore that the moment it got something to keep other things out of its city, it would build that first. A wall, it would build a wall.

Now, for the distraction. Rhamiel readied itself, positioned its voice behind the Tree Goblin, and spoke. “Hey, stupid. That house took a while to build; how are you going to replace that?!” it practically screamed at the Monster.

It stopped and froze momentarily before laboriously turning around to see where the sound was coming from.

Groaning, it looked around for the source of the sound and found nothing.

“That was your plan?” Joselin groaned.

“Nope, this is,” the Core told her.

Then, a clanging of stone on stone caught Joselin and the Goblin Dryad. Looking, both of them saw a pair of twenty-pound stones slamming into each other. Only a tiny wisp light marked the location of the Drone making the noise.

Joselin did not waste time. She moved while the Goblin Dryad looked curiously at the Drone, moving in the opposite direction. She ducked around the buildings in an attempt to move behind the Monster, held her spear to her side, and carefully jogged. Watching her steps and making sure she made as little noise as possible.

The Monster’s attention was only held for a few seconds before it turned away from the Drone, making a noise, and turned the goblin torso towards where Rhaiel would not have suspected right at the Core itself. It wondered how the thing could have guessed its actual location but was not concerned with learning why.

Rhamiel ordered the Drone to defend it, and the Drone did the only thing it could: Throw rocks at the Goblin Dryad.

One of your Drones has attacked an enemy by throwing rocks. It dealt no damage.

“Of Course, it did no damage,” Rhamiel groaned.

But the thrown rocks had done the trick. The Goblin Dryad turned back to the Drone and roared at it. Raising a foot, it stomped on the ground, and a ripple of magic emanated in a pulse. The Drone was knocked back several paces, and the creature advanced. It leaned forward, putting its shoulder first, and fell into a tumble, placing itself right above the Drone.

“Any time now, Joselin,” Rhamiel announced. “My poor brave Drone is about to get- Oh, no, it’s gone.”

In a moment, the tree monster finished its tumble, raised its fist, and brought it down upon the glowing wisp. It winked out, disappearing with a simple prompt.

Your Drone was Destroyed.

“Nooooooo,” Rhamiel cried out at the loss of its Drone. “It was only two days old!”

Joselin had finished pulling herself onto the second, still-standing house and paused. Rhamiel watched as she took several large, quick, and stress-filled breaths as she prepared herself. Then she dropped low and charged.

Your System Guide is activating the following Perks: Outer Hope Weapon, Woodland Stride, and Scout’s Rush.

Your System Guide is activating the following Skill: Uncanny Strike.

The Goblin Dryad turned to face the advancing Elf, sweeping its tree trunk arms around in an attempt to backhand Joselin aside. She crouched and pushed herself up to leap over the attack but screamed as failed as she could completely clear the swing. She managed to go over the arm but not without falling shoulder-first to the ground.

The wood monster completed the swing and took a single languishally slow step back as it seemed to reset itself. It raised its arm, moving it back and twisting its entire torso in preparation for a swing. Rhamiel watched with rapt attention as the Mana around Joselin moved into her body, adjusting her speed and empowering her to stand faster than she had moved before. Her makeshift spear glowed with a violent gold light that outlined the weapon and shone forth. But even as the Core observed it, the magic seemed to be loose around the spear, dissipating into the air around it faster than it was generated.

As soon as she had gotten to her feet, Joselin sprinted forward, covering the five-meter distance between her and the Monster in a heartbeat as the Monster began to throw its punch.

The punch cleaved into the house, shattering the weak architecture of the primary dwelling and narrowly missing Joselin as she leaped over the blow. Shrapnel from the blow to the house blew past Joselin as she adjusted how she held the spear above her head, tip pointed down as she fell towards the fleshy center of the wood-covered Goblin.

Her Outer Hope empowered spear plunged into the Goblin’s clavicle, and a snapping sound like snapping twigs echoed through the Core’s Domain. Even as Joselin held on and bounced on the spear, plunging it deeper into the Goblin’s chest, the Goblin was screaming in anguish as the horrible light of the Outer Hope energies was destroying its insides.

The creature’s wooden arm reached up and grabbed Joselin around the waist, squeezing her around the waist as she screamed. The Monster pulled her and the spear free from the Goblin, releasing a spray of green chlorophyll blood into the air, evaporating in the same hatred-laced gold light as the Monster filled with Joselin’s power. It released her, tossing her backward as it fell backward, a howl, beginning and dying as it let out its final breath.

Congratulations, Civilization Core Rhamiel! Your System Guide has slain a monster on its way to kill you and take your power. As your last line of defense, she did her job defending you, and you have gained 100% experience, leveling you to Level 6 for your System Guides victory. You have gained 3 Attribute points to spend towards your progression.

You have gained the Population Growth Perk. For every civilization, there is a point where a hamlet becomes a village, a village becomes a town, and so on. Whenever you meet the threshold of civilians in your settlement and achieve certain benchmarks, you can evolve your settlement into the next stage. Granting you and your civilian’s bonuses and rewards. You are currently a Level 0 settlement: Isolated Dwelling. This is now displayed in your Character Profile.

Rhamiel almost immediately invested four of the six available points in Core Strength and the remainder in Core Mana Recovery, increasing its Mana Recovery. After a moment of reviewing its character sheet, Rhamiel enjoyed the change.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Name: Rhamiel

Species: Spirit Core (Civilization)

Age: 4 days old

Level: 6 ( 01.079% to level 6)

Civilization Level: 0 Isolated Dwellings

Number of Civilians: 1

Core Durability

10

Core Mana

10

Statistics: 0 points to spend

Core Strength

002

Core Structure

001

Core Presence

001

Core Mana Supply

001

Core Mana Recovery

006

Core Karma

004

Skills:

Domain

Level 1 (91.731%)

Absorb Essence

Level 1 (05.1548%)

Mana Processing

Level 1 (34.3333%)

Structured Mindset

Level 2 (20.212%)

Perks:

Blueprint Manipulation

Summon Drone

System Guide

Beacon of Hope

Population Growth

With its Core Strength now at two, Rhamiel could summon two Drones, which was the entire point of trying to kill something in its Domain. The extra points in its Core Mana Recovery helped with the amount of Mana it could gain in an hour. The additional Mana per hour would help it grow its Domain and speed up how much Mana it could feed to the building it was constructing.

“Holy Order,” Joselin swore under her breath. “I leveled up. I was not expecting to level up from anything for a few more weeks of fighting.”

“A few weeks? That is, like, forever away,” Rhamiel told her. “Come on, now I can summon another- Crap, another monster!”

“What?” Joselin exclaimed in surprise. Turning around, she found a solitary monster coming towards the buildings. This one was a single slim tree monster; tree limbs were twisted into a knarled facsimile of arms, and it walked on a pair of legs shaped from roots. It stood only six feet tall, and strips of bark were missing from its body, with claw marks accompanying the missing wood.

It let out a low roar as it trudged through the clearing, and Joselin did not move. She just stared at the creature for long moments as it walked forward. It was slow like the other thing she had just beaten, but it was stockier and moved with less grace than the other Monster.

“That’s a Pine Golem,” Joselin mused. Dad said he saw some Pine Golems and went to get them for us to kill. Do you think so? Do you believe Dad and the Goblin Dryad sent this as a fluke?”

“No idea,” Rhamiel stated simply. “Can you kill it?”

“After all that with the other one? Yeah, this is going to be easy,” Joselin said. She walked up to the corpse of the tree-encrusted Goblin and noisily withdrew her spear from its body. It came free with a noisy squelch, and Joselin wasted no time.

She approached the Pine Golem, stepped back to avoid its initial swing, and thrust at its body. The improvised spear thunked into its body, and Joselin stepped back with the recoil from the ineffective hit. With the length of her spear, she could keep it at range for several minutes as she slowly whittled down its health with weak thrusts and cuts.

Eventually, the creature died, and Joselin fell back on her backside with several heavy breaths as she dropped the spear. “Annnnnd that did not even net me a tenth of the other ones experience gain.”

Dad walked up from the clearing’s border and scowled at the now-slain Pine Golem before turning his eyes to Joselin. “The other one?” Dad asked critically. “What other one? I only lured in the one.”

“A little while after you left, a Goblin Dryad appeared, and Joselin and I had to fight it,” Rhamiel stated proudly. “It was terrifying, but she fought and stabbed and-”

Joselin stayed quiet while Rhamiel talked Dad’s ear off, and she led him around the house where the Goblin Dryad lay dead.

“Huh, I would have thought this would have been noticed. These things are not subtle; they would have to think at all to be more subtle,” he then looked Joselin up and down with a new look in his eyes. It was strange, almost like he was looking at her analytically before, but now he recognized her as something more. He smiled and said, “Huh, I would not have suggested fighting a pseudo-elite monster for another year or two. For Love’s sake, this is impressive. Good Work, Honey.”

The smile enveloped Joselin’s face was so large and sudden that the Core thought something was wrong. Then she got a little bounce in her stance, and Rhamiel had to ask.

“Joselin, what’s wrong with your face?” Rhamiel asked. It’s all teeth and wide eyes, and you’re jumping a little. It’s weird.”

“What? Oh, I’m just… smiling,” Joselin said, correcting her actions and standing up straight. “So, uh, what now?”

“Now I will wait here with you two while your mother leads the survivors from the Werejackel attack here. You wanted to build a city, Core, soon you will have people for that city. Did you do anything to give you more of your… what are they called?” Dad asked.

“Oh, Drones?” Rhamiel confirmed. “Yes, I did!”

“Then you need to get to work summoning them and building your settlement,” Dad told Rhamiel seriously. Then he turned to Joselin and told her, “You need to help him and keep it on track. If we are going to make this work, we will need to help it and make it stronger and more able to build.”

Corinth Setella (Dad), Father of your System Guide, is interested in joining your barely existent settlement. Will you allow him to become a citizen in your settlement? YES or NO?

The Core hoped I would only have to do this with some people; otherwise, it could become annoying quickly. It confirmed the prompt and then turned its attention to summoning another Drone to replace the brave one that passed in the fight with the Dryad Goblin. Rhamiel took a moment to respect the Drone’s sacrifice but was interrupted almost immediately.

“Rhamiel,” Dad asked. “How much longer until you complete the Library and then can move on to something else?”

“Soon,” the Core told him noncommittal. “With two Drones, this shouldn’t take as long.”

Dad looked at Joselin, eyes furrowed and jaw clenched. “But?” Dad asked.

The Core did not answer for several long seconds, confused by how the man knew it was holding something back. “But… uh, it isn’t like there is any way for me to know for sure how long the construction time is or how far it is into the construction.”

“Wait, there isn’t?” Joselin interjected. “Hold on,” she told both of them. Staring out into space, her eyes were a bit glassy, and she moved around as if she were looking at many different things across her field of vision.

A long minute passed, and she blinked, returning to herself, “Sorry, it took me a minute to find it. Rhamiel, there is a way to judge how long a building is being built in your Domain. You have to focus on the building’s wireframe, whatever that means, and try to look at the construction details; what I am reading states that you should get a prompt that details the construction. Does that make sense?”

Rhamiel wasn’t sure if it did or didn’t; it simply had not tried doing that before. It took a moment to summon its new second Drone and set both to work before focusing on the construction.

It remembered moving the library’s wireframe into place until it was happy with where it was sitting. But it had never tried to see the wireframe after that. It focused on the location and tried to see the wireframe again, finding that it was accommodating to its wishes. Bright green lines appeared in his vision, outlining the details of the building without giving away any of its finer details.

“Yeah, I see the wireframe,” Rhamiel told her. It concentrated on looking up the information it wanted. “Annnd… oh, there it is. You were right.”

Tier 1 Architects Library Construction Site.

Workers: 2 Drones.

Time until completion: 4 days.

Percentage complete: 8%.

Mana Processing Available.

“It says four days and eight percent complete,” Rhamiel told them. That must mean that it would have taken seven or eight days for it to complete without my second Drone,” it mused out loud.

“Wait, can’t you help your Drones build the building faster?” Joselin asked. She looked towards the Drones, picking up whole logs left over from the previous Drone, and watched as they stripped the bark and began cutting it into planks. It was a slow process, but the two Drones seemed to sync perfectly, immediately going from one step to the next.

“Yeah,” Joselin said. She took a moment to look up something in her systems and nodded her head. “Yeah,” she said with more vigor. You could use your Mana Processing Skill to speed up the construction of your Drones.”

Curious about what she meant, the Core looked up its skill.

Mana Processing Skill Level 1: Using only your Mana, you can take raw materials and shape them into further work form. At level one, you can take a piece of raw material, like wood or stone, and work it into a single and simple piece component. You can only process materials and items you have absorbed the essence of and created an Imprint of with your Absorb Essense Skill.

Exasperated, the Core then read the description of its Absorb Essense Skill.

Absorb Essense Skill Level 1: As you learned in the tutorial, a Spirit Core of any variety can take something and fill it with Mana to know about the object and gain specific amounts of control over it.

As a Civilization Core, you are meant to work symbiosis with your city’s citizens; thus, your control is limited. Instead, you can Absorb the essence of building components, structural pieces, and even whole buildings at the higher levels of this skill.

“Why aren’t these one skill?” Rhamiel grumbled as it looked at the obvious connection between the two skills. It looked simple enough: Fill something with Mana, like some of those planks the Drones are making, absorb it, and create an imprint. Then, it could use the Mana Processing Skill to create the components.

It sounded simple enough, but the Core was annoyed that this was not brought to its attention a few days earlier. If it had known this, it could have been much further in its skill and city growth.

Or if it had thought to look up its skills instead of just playing with its buildings. But the Core refused to say that out loud.

“Why aren’t what one skill?” Dad asked. “What are you muttering about Core?”

I have a pair of skills that should be one skill. They are two steps in the same process; it’s a stupid design flaw,” Rhamiel harumphed.

“No, we’ve seen that kind of thing before,” Dad argued. “Right, honey?”

“What?” she asked, startled to hear the question posed to her. “I’m sorry, what?”

“We have a pair of skills that should be one skill but are instead two skills,” Dad hinted, giving her a glare.

“Oh,” she said with a bit of annoyance. “Archery and Accuracy.”

“Yes, but while they overlap a lot, there are two separate sets of skills. The archery skill gives us bonuses to our balance, coordination, arrow drawing and nocking, and stance control. Accuracy involves reading the wind and learning where to arc the shot for distance, among many other factors. It also carries over to other ranged weapons, like that spear she was carrying and throwing weapons.”

“Okay, but how does this affect my skills?” Rhamiel asked.

“It means that they are two separate skills because they are two separate skills. They both require different applications of effort and expertise,” Dad shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it either way; best just to use it and move on. Can’t change the system we are using to gain what little power we have; best to not think too hard about it,” he stated, turning away from Joselin to look at the setting sun. “It is getting late. I will get us some food; work with the Core, Honey, see if you can help it finish the building faster.”

“Yes, Dad,” Joselin told him as he began to walk off.

“Alright, Rhamiel, we better get you imprinting anything that will speed up this library,” Joselin told him a bit sullenly.

“What’s wrong?” Rhamiel asked, unsure what changed both of their moods.

“Let’s just say we wish we could change the system slightly. A lot of people might still be alive today if our defensive magic also stopped physics from working,” she stated, not looking at anything in particular.

The Core knew what physics was, but it wasn’t sure what the study of matter and energy meant to that sad tone—not that it mattered. If they did not want to discuss it, the Core would not pry.

Instead, it turned to the Drones and their varied piles of Oakwood logs, planks, gravel, granite blocks, and piles of stone dust. The Core looked at them for a long moment and began with the planks, slowly pushing Mana into the component.

After a moment, Rhamiel received a Prompt.

Would you like to absorb the component “Untreated Wood Plank” for Imprinting? Yes or No?

Selecting yes, Rhamiel felt the Mana move out of its crystalline body and cover the wooden plank. It slowly filled the wood as it lifted out of the pile of similar boards, thoughts filling the Core as the plank began to disintegrate into sawdust. The sawdust then broke down further into smaller and smaller particles, soon becoming so small that Rhamiel only knew it still existed through the Mana that filled the dust.

You have successfully Imprinted the “Untreated Wooden Plank” and now can mimic the processes of creating it with just your Mana. Imprint saved into your structured Mindset Skill.

Sighing to itself, the Core opened its structured Mindset Skill to determine what it could do.

Structured Mindset Skill Level 2: A Civilization Core needs a mind as well created, maintained, and organized as the realm it hopes to create. A Civilization thrives on order, not chaos. Your Structured Mindset passively helps calm your mind in the face of panic or disorder, granting greater resistance to adverse mental effects.

Every Level of this Skill allows you to store more Building Blueprints in your memory, and every odd level grants you the ability to automate using one more skill or Perk you possess. Current Applicable Skills: Domain(Skill), Mana Processing(Skill), Summon Drone(Perk).

“Oh, that’s neat,” Rhamiel muttered, wishing it had known to look at these skill descriptions earlier. Maybe that was why Core had System Guides in the first place: to help them learn things they would not have otherwise thought about or discovered on their own.

“What did you find?” Joselin asked, a coy smile playing across her face.

“That I can automate the creation of components to save my Drones some time and speed,” The Core grumbled. “I just wished I knew this sooner. I would have-”

“Hey, I got a question,” Joselin said, looking at the Basic Dwelling and the construction site for the Architects Library. You don’t have any iron or steel, right? Then how are your buildings holding together without nails?” Joselin asked, raising an eyebrow.

The Core did not answer her for a moment. “What’s a nail?”