Health was still a factor that the Core knew nothing about. It understood that it being high was a good thing and that it would likely deteriorate when it hit zero. However, it did not comprehend what supposed actions needed to be taken to make sure that these extremes were hit and nor did it understand what could lower them.

Yet, somehow, it had clearly done something which had the result of lowering the health down to barely a tenth of what it had been before. The Core had no clue what it had been, but it knew that it needed to find out that very instant.

What had it been doing in the time between the last check on the status and the current moment? Well… it had been manipulating Mana at different levels. Was the [Mana-Manipulation] then the culprit behind the lowered health level? No, there was a remote chance of that being true since the Core had used the skill multiple times before seeing no sign of the health changing there. The health had always been full, no matter how much it had used Mana in the past.

But it had used Mana in a new way recently. It had messed around with the pattern within, instead of simply using it. Such a change correlated with the Core feeling the unfamiliar sensation that had been mentioned before. Was such a sensation an indicator of health being lost? The Core wanted to find out, yet likewise didn't want to risk losing more health.

However, the chances of the sensation being a direct effect of losing health were high, and the chance of the two happening at the same time without correlation was too low to think about. Therefore, the Core could eliminate all other options, but the dismantling of the Mana-Pattern being the source of lost health. It also helped that more health wasn't being lost now that the pattern had been remade and that the sensation from before stopped the moment that the Pattern flooded with Mana.

Did that mean that Health was stored inside of the Patterns and that breaking the earlier pattern down equalled the loss in such a way? While originally seeming logical, the Core couldn't figure out why making a new Pattern was then supposed to be able to fix the loss. No, it had to be something more extreme than that. Instead of being directly affected by it, was there a chance that it was more… indirect cause?

The Mana had been spread out all over the Core’s interior, constantly bashing against the borders at top-speed without ever showing signs of slowing down. Could that have been it, the constant grinding against the edges creating damage? The guess seemed to have some worth behind it until the Core pointed out to itself that the damage only stopped when the Pattern had started. Even when most of the Mana had been gathered, there had still been damage taken. The manipulation stopping the Mana from hitting the walls had made no effect.

So it wasn't that either. The Core knew it had to do with the Mana in some form or another, yet it was having trouble-

Wait. It was the form, wasn't it? When moving around in a fluid pattern, it showed intellect, it showed the promise of being manipulated, it showed itself as a clear sign of being alive. When the Core had stopped this sign it had degraded its own mana and itself with it down to the level of something not alive, the structure that it was made of had done its duty in making sure that the inside equalled the outside. Because of that, it had been steadily turned into the same chaotic inanimate currents close to it.

There were no clear signs that the Core was wrong on its theory. And since no more could be made, it had to accept the current one as being correct, no matter how little it truly wanted to accept it as being so.

That it had been so utterly close to being something without thought, without logic, forced to accept a single reality for an eternity? It had not been welcomed with an open mind. The Core had reflexively tightened its grip around the pattern it had spent so much work on, nearly stretching it farther than the Core had previously dared to do. There were still some thoughts that wondered if it had the same ability to return to its previous form. Since there was no chance of the Core wanting to potentially damage itself and truly become an entity without thought, such an experiment was saved for a time where it didn't have to worry about being killed.

Looking onto the pattern again, its gaze ridding itself of the fear of stillness, the Core couldn't help but be a little proud of its work. The pattern was not as impressive as what had been seen before, the loops and curves being less plentiful. There were still more than could be counted in a few thoughts, but it was still far from the level seen before. However, there was no part of the previous pattern that had separated naturally, and that was what set the current one apart.

Running away from the mainline of the Pattern was a strand of Mana, the strand linearly moving over to the closest part of the border. Here, it had a small off-shoot where all Mana that didn't go through the border came through. It was in full use since the Core had allowed no Mana out at all.

That was going to change at that moment. The Core had waited for long enough. With a mental twist of the thread, the Mana was allowed out into the pieces of space that the Core did not hold for itself. And the sight was beautiful, just as it had known it would be from before.

With all attention on the sight, the Core could pick out the smaller details. It was able to see the secrets that had lain before its gaze for so long, yet had never been seen because of both lacking focus and experience. So much could be realized with but a glance.

With every cloud of Mana shown in different colours, the Core had failed in its hunt for information by simply thinking about it all as one big condensed circle of Mana, held together by the barriers that defined its physical shape. That had been wrong to think of it in such a way, the truth being a more… individual way of seeing it.

It was not one big flow of Mana. That implied that the Mana held together, that it didn't move randomly from each other, that it followed a structure shared between the small atoms of Mana. It wasn’t anything like that. It may have seemed like it previously, the distance and number of coloured Mana slightly obscuring the Chaos, yet the true signs of Chaos had been witnessed on a much more personal scale now. The Core had learned to see what it truly was. It had witnessed a truth it had never realized before, and due to that, it had grown in skill.

A [Skill] has been improved!

You have understood [Mana-Sense] more deeply

As if on cue, the [System] confirmed what the Core had imagined, that its skills had become better than what it had been before. While the [Skill-Screen] had shown nothing new, there was a clear sign of improvement for the Core’s own sight.

It was hard to describe the change. Everything was just slightly more clear. The imperfections that took time to notice before were now as clear as day, the apparent patterns based on desperation disappearing from its sights instantly. It all made a little more sense.

And with the new knowledge, the Core was able to map out just what was around it. The constant Mana being sent out was more than enough for the surroundings to always show itself, with the Mana bouncing around and highlighting the various parts of the nearest non-sentient objects. It was this that allowed it to finally learn more about what was there to see. It learned the shapes of everything close to it, studied it all for longer than it could imagine, and made sure that every detail was as clear as possible.

Each colour had its own space, everything perfectly lined up. Some spaces were bigger than others, with the Mana inside moving quicker because of it. But the latter fact didn't always hold up, some of the greyer colours actually slowing down when inside the larger objects. Why? The Core was still not entirely sure.

Colours were still a hard subject to conquer. There were different ones and they all corresponded to a specific border. Some looked very close to each other, but enough effort allowed the Core to see the differences in the minute levels easily enough. However, there had to be more to them.

But what was it? That was the hard question. Not that it could have been anything but hard at that point, a simple question likely already having been answered. No, the question of colour was the hardest of the hard, and the Core had no proper answer to it. [Mana-Manipulation] allowed the Core to send out Mana of its own which then allowed it to use [Mana-Sense] to see everything around its Mana. However, it didn't know more than that.

… It was around that point where the Core released that there was another [Skill] in its repertoire. It was one that had likely never been used but was nonetheless among the skills it could use. [Appraisal].

Skill-Name

Rarity

Description

Cost

Mana-Sense

Rare

Allows for the user to sense [Mana Currents]

Passive

Mana-Manipulation

Rare

Allows for the user to manipulate [Mana Currents]

Passive

Appraisal

Rare

Allows the user to gather information regarding items or entities

10MP

It was the third skill it had, yet it easily came first when priorities came along with the current problem. The Core had not focused too much on the description, as the context had been vague at best. Yet, the words now spoke to it like they were laden with the perfect truth. The skill allowed it to gain information about the items or entities close to it. And since the swirls of colourful Mana weren't sentient entities, they had to be categorized as items. As such, there was nothing holding the Core back from using the skill for its own gain.

Now came along the question of how to use it. It didn't hold the Core back for long, however, the knowledge of it possessing the skill was more than enough for the gears to rotate accordingly. The Entity had felt what it was like to use the other two skills before. It knew the feeling, how similar they were yet also so different. By honing in on what was familiar, it took only simply guesswork before something finally showed itself. Focusing on one of the grey pieces of Mana and the border that was outlined through careful memorization, the Core did its best to force forth a result.

Stone

Common material found in the wild.

There was no further information. It was not the most descriptive thing in the world, and it lacked any context. But it was more than the Core had ever known about the world before, so that sure didn't stop it from being ecstatic with the new discovery.

Was it the same material when looking at different borders with the same colour? The Core thought about that for a few moments before just testing it out. Taking five random places that were grey, each showed the same screen as before. While all six nuances of grey were different, they still belonged to the same major group. So it wasn't the minute difference in colour that decided the material type but the overall colouring? That was nice to know.

Checking another ten times on the remaining grey borders, it could see, the Core grew satisfied with its conclusion. With how much it had to work with, there was no reason not to check out everything else to make sure there were no outliers in the data. How many problems could be made from such a thing? Many.

However, there were still so many colours to go through. While grey dominated the landscape, there were still some other major ones that the Core wanted to know about. Above it was a large swath of brown with some green mixed through what looked like some very elongated borders. The Core was still not sure about the shape, yet the data gathered showed it to be most likely form. Why was the green as tendrils when nearly all other materials seen were more round? It was hard to tell. With the small amount of green being seen, it was even harder to get accurate readings. With the very narrow borders, the Core wasn't even sure that chaos reigned within it. But… it would soon find out. First, the brown and second-most common material needed to be [Appraised].

Dirt

Common material found in the wild.

The actual description wasn't important, the name of the material was more important than anything else. Dirt, huh? The Core had to remember the name, with how much of the material there was around it. Onto the green, however. With another pull in the Skill’s direction, the focus was turned on the green Mana seen.

And in response came… nothing but the sensation of health being lowered. No Screen popped up to give the Core information. What was going on? There had been no changes to the Mana-Pattern, so the Core had no reason for why it needed to have taken damage.

Character Screen

Name:

-

Gender:

-

Level:

1

Class:

Core

Race:

Core

Title:

The Ancient One

Health:

68/110

H-Regen:

0.1/sec

Mana:

3/130

M-Regen:

0.12/sec

Stamina:

-/-

S-Regen:

0/sec

Basic Stats

Strength:

-

Wisdom:

12

Vitality:

10

Intelligence:

12

Dex:

-

Willpower:

12

Available points:

5

Looking at the [Status], another theory on how to lose health was quickly gained. Whenever the Core tried to use Mana that it didn't have, more would be attempted to be removed from its current disposal, making its health take a hit instead. Trying to take more than what there was didn't seem to be good for physical stability, after all.

It had underestimated the consumption since the other two [Skills] had a passive cost instead of the ‘per use cost’ that the [Appraisal] skill had. Not the greatest achievement, but the Core was happy that it knew it would learn it for the future.

Moving on. Time needed to progress before more could be done. Waiting around was the only action that could be done, and the Core would do it for a long time in a row. It only hoped that its thoughts would keep it occupied.