The [Dungeon-Born] were basically slaves to the Dungeon-Core, made to do their bidding. The Core in question could certainly see the benefits of such a deal, especially when it was on the favourable side of it. The reason why the [Giant-Ant] had not bitten into the Core was not due to some lacking appetite but due to the fact that the Core had not ordered it to do it yet.

Wait. How did the Ant receive orders anyway? The Core couldn't really remember giving it a direct order to come over to it yet that order had certainly been fulfilled without question, which meant that at some point it had heard it. Was it because of the expelling of mana? Or maybe it was due to the intent behind the Mana sent out.

That sounded easy enough to replicate. Focusing on the Mana-output already being made so the Core could see into the world, one order came into being.

‘Walk around me once,’ the Core sent out to the [Giant-Ant]. And without a moment's pause, the creature did exactly that, taking a full-speed stroll around the Core on the ground, leaving just enough distance to not overstep it. It had not thought to put some distance into the encircling. Perhaps it was due to it wanting to take the most efficient path? If so, there was some large amount of respect in that action. Efficiency was key, after all.

After throwing around a few more orders that comprised making the Ant take a specific amount of steps, attempt to jump, stand on one leg, and do many other physical tasks, the Core concluded that there were still some limits on what could be done. While the creature clearly did try to stand on one leg, the physical limitations stopped it from achieving the needed reaction. That was one part that certainly needed to be remembered in further orders.

However… complexity wasn't yet a problem. Making a long list of tasks in an individual order, such as walking a few steps, making a circle, then repeating everything it had just done thirteen times before doing the whole thing in reverse and then looking upwards, worked fine enough, even if there was no way that the ant would have been able to memorize such an order in the time it was given. This made the Core have the initial conclusion that its own intelligence was assisting the ant in the task, making it know what it needed to do and therefore offloading the requirements on its own mental abilities.

That became even more obvious when it was told to go stand on a specific kind of material. The ant would hardly know which material had what name, seeing as it had just been born, yet it was still more than capable of locating where it needed to go. It didn't even look around before moving, as if the location had already been memorized. As if it had been taken exactly from the memories of the Core.

The potential of such a thing was quite clear, though the full extent of it wasn't exactly open for use yet. There were multiple reasons, of course, the first being the limited good a single ant could do in the long run. A single pair of mandibles were not good when compared to ten. Oh, the potential for digging there was.

Not that such expansion ideas were even possible yet. The Core had a few other issues that needed to be considered before anything else. The first of which had been something that wasn't exactly new but it was something that had been put off. How much did it cost to make a single Ant? Looking at the [Status Screen] gave an answer to that.

Character Screen

Name:

-

Gender:

-

Level:

1

Class:

Core

Race:

Core

Title:

The Ancient One

Health:

160/160

H-Regen:

0.15/sec

Mana:

43/130

M-Regen:

0.12/sec

Stamina:

-/-

S-Regen:

0/sec

Basic Stats

Strength:

-

Wisdom:

12

Vitality:

15

Intelligence:

12

Dex:

-

Willpower:

12

Available points:

0

With how long a time had been spent messing around with the actual orders, the Core guessed the number to be somewhere around ninety to ninety-five, some lacking time-keeping having been had in the last couple of minutes. The new kind of actions had been much too interesting to be aware of its surroundings.

But the Core did perhaps need to do that for the future. Looking over at the ant beside it, the insect standing still without a word, the Core did wonder if the cost was that efficient for what could be gained. Were there other ways to make the creature stronger, more… worthy of having so much Mana spent on it? Because it was worth more than five entire [Appraisal] uses, which was saying something really serious at that point.

…

There was something close to a mental pause as a realization came across its mind. Mana was not that much of an issue at the current moment. Trying to minimize use wasn't the worst thing in the world, but making it a higher priority than pure growth was quite extreme. And it wasn't like the Core couldn't gather more Mana in record time, the [Mana-Manipulation] more than a little useful for gathering the energy manually. And, actually, with the new upgrade in that particular skill, hasn't there been an upgrade in just how fast the process was?

There indeed was. What normally took two full minutes now barely took one and a half, the Core able to fill itself up within a tiny amount of time compared to earlier. How grand a thing that was. How quick it was. There was nothing holding back progress after all.

So the Core would create another [Giant-Ant] since the cost for it was so low. That part of the plan had no push-back anymore, and there was no real reason not to. However… there was still another point that needed to be settled before anything else.

The space available to [Spawn] the creature was quite limited. When the Core had simply been by itself, the sight it had used had seemed massive, the entity calling it more than what was needed. The entrance of other creatures showed just how wrong that was, the ant before it could hardly move around within view. Yes, it could take a few steps forwards and a few steps back, but that was all that there was to it. More movement than that risked that the creature stepped outside of the Core’s sight. What happened with such an event? There was no real desire to find out yet. Orders made before might still stick, but there was little chance that the Core would be able to make new ones later on.

The answer was to increase the radius of its sight. That was easy enough to do, in theory. The Core had learned earlier on how the radius itself was calculated, the stream of Mana being funnelled out being the direct factor. Previously, it had used simple bursts yet that hadn't been enough. A constant current was much more practical.

But… it was also so much more costly. The current output was so minuscule that it didn't even largely impact the regeneration of Mana. If the Core was to increase it, enough to be noticeable, there was a fear that it would become so much more. Yet, just like before, instincts like the preservation of Mana were a bit stupid seeing at the entity could gather it manually anyway.

With nothing else stopping it, the Core increased the [Mana-Curren], more and more being sent out into the world. It was more than enough to at least get a reaction out of the [Giant-Ant], the creature tilting its head over to look at the entity for a brief moment. Perhaps it was curiosity. Perhaps it was a stomach that saw prey. Whatever reason it was, the Core simply ordered it back in place, focus needed with no real distractions around.

The widening of the sphere that showed its sight was quite clear. More and more was possible to see. There wasn't much real depth when it came to the ceiling and floor, the Mana stopping about a meter down. The Core did not care too much about that, as the elongation was much more important. It only wanted to know what the Giant Ants were up to, after all, and there wasn't a high chance they would be able to go through solid material.

Progress at the start was quick enough, the Core was able to see details all around. Materials, colours, and much else that had never been seen before was suddenly present within its sight. It was almost a bit much to experience at the start, yet the slow growth helped the Core’s mind adapt. However, that didn't mean the slowness was exactly intentional.

The slowness wasn't intentional in any way, actually. The Core had increased the rate of more Mana being pumped out more than anything. The linear increase had grown closer to the beginnings of an exponential one, yet the increases seen grew smaller and smaller. Was something going wrong?

It shouldn't have done that, the Mana distributing itself equally. Any chance of it simply gathering up around the Core wasn't obvious, at least, the entity doing its best to fan out anything that tried to stay still. Everything needed to be in movement, after all, and it was still its own Mana. It could still use it.

But the increases had grown so slow. The Core already knew that it had reached the point where it couldn't sustain the growth, the feeling of Mana being released showing up as a coldness like never before. The sustained act of emptying itself was not liked at all. Since it had been filled up at the start, it wondered how much it had lost.

Character Screen

Name:

-

Gender:

-

Level:

1

Class:

Core

Race:

Core

Title:

The Ancient One

Health:

160/160

H-Regen:

0.15/sec

Mana:

21/130

M-Regen:

0.12/sec

Stamina:

-/-

S-Regen:

0/sec

Basic Stats

Strength:

-

Wisdom:

12

Vitality:

15

Intelligence:

12

Dex:

-

Willpower:

12

Available points:

0

Everything but the remaining twenty-one was present. The Core truly had gone beyond what was needed. And even as it looked on the [Status-Screen] there were clear signs of the stop needing to be instant, the Mana Points going down to nineteen within a second time. An expenditure of two whole Mana each second…

Doing as was required, the Core put the level back down to what it had been originally. There was no time for anything fancy, the entity just wanted to make sure that the output wouldn't try and pump out Mana that it didn't have. There was no way that would end well, no matter how little was taken away.

The first test to expand… had not gone as planned. With how long the radius had been, the Core had fully expected to at least make it grow twenty times as wide as before. While that might have seemed too scandalous to even try, it was all based on pure logic. The current length required next to no Mana, so something ten times as big would, perhaps, require enough Mana to be noticeable but certainly not enough to cripple the Core. Yet it had done so much more than that, taking away the reserves present at a rapid rate.

Two whole Mana had been spent each second. The sheer level of waste on that was incredible. Even with Manual-Regeneration being at play, the Core wasn't sure it would be able to keep up such a distance for more than a few minutes. And even at that point, more focus would be kept around keeping it alive than looking around at the different materials.

The cost did not grow linearly. That much was obvious. In what way did it grow then? It more than doubled by the halfway point. Such was more than clear to the Core. Yet there had to be some trick to it. Some way to measure the cost when putting it in relation to the radius.

… While there might have been such a method, the Core was not among the sentient beings capable of figuring such out on its own. It knew that the cost grew at a certain rate compared to the length. And since it didn't want a certain length other than it being more than what it originally had, the Core was more than able to just figure out what point would be possible to sustain indefinitely.

The Core slowly but surely expanded the sphere of influence again, not being near as fast as before, constantly looking at its [Status-Screen]. There was a point where the natural [Mana-Regeneration] wouldn't be enough to hold the cost at bay. There was likewise a point where the cost would be so low that the regeneration could increase gradually with time. And, finally, there was a point where each equalled each other out perfectly.

That point was perhaps not ten times the original distance out, but it was still so much more than what the distance was at the start. It was enough and it was what the Core would work with for the foreseeable future. Sure, it meant that all regeneration had to then be gained through Manual work, but that was a small price to pay in the long run. At least there was no constant dread of having to do it to make sure that the Mana didn't run out in the meanwhile.

Where before the [Giant-Ant] could only walk a few steps it could now walk over twenty in a row without getting close to the perimeter of where the Core could see. It was an impressive sight to behold, the entity only happy that it was able to do so. There were new materials to explore as well, which just made it all the better. However, with the increased width of the play area, there was also one more detail that the Core wasn't quick to forget about.

There was more than enough for two creatures inside. And two creatures there would be. After first spending a minute and a half gathering up all the required energy, the Core slowly but surely formed it all into a magnificent creature, completely identical to the one made before. Only this time it was faster, the movements cleaner than anything else, and the tendrils used to push the Mana into place being less delicate and swifter. Within ten seconds of building, the entity was ready to spawn the new creature in. And so it did it.

The new [Giant-Ant] was quick to learn the ins and outs of walking around, following in the footsteps of the one before it. Yet, just to make sure that there were no problems attached with the recent addition to the group, the Core [Appraised it].

Character Screen

Name:

-

Gender:

Male

Level:

1

Class:

-

Race:

Giant-Ant

Title:

Dungeon-Born

Health:

130/130

H-Regen:

0.12/sec

Mana:

-/-

M-Regen:

0/sec

Stamina:

160/160

S-Regen:

0.15/sec

Cost:

90 MP

Basic Stats

Strength:

18

Wisdom:

5

Vitality:

12

Intelligence:

5

Dex:

15

Willpower:

5

While nothing seemed instantly wrong with the sheet, the Core did quickly notice the fresh addition just before the stats. The [System] had recognized its efforts in figuring out the cost of the manufacturing of the creature and had made sure that it was noted down on the sheet attached to it. The Core was not sure what to think about some sentient being knowing its thoughts, however, the idea of being watched over without realizing it was more than a little unsettling.

… Ignoring the paradox ready to unfold itself, the Core continued its effort in making sure that things would proceed smoothly. First, there was another test to take. It was one that the Core had been dreading to do, fearful of the mistakes it had the potential to pose. There was also a chance it could even backfire in the short-term which was even worse.

What happened if one of the [Giant-Ants] stepped outside of the Core’s influence? There was the general fear that it would return to its previous state, losing the title of [Dungeon-Born], and grow to have the hunger for Mana once again. If such happened, the entity would have to defend itself.

That was partly why it had made another creature before testing the idea out. While there was always the chance that the wild [Giant-Ant] would win, the Core mostly wanted to have them fight so that it could create a large number of rocks on top of them and squash both until they stopped moving. It was perhaps a dirty tactic, but there was no doubt that it would work if given time.

Looking towards the two creatures still at its command, the Core grew weary of the results it would find. It continued, ready to find out for sure.

‘You,’ the Core send out while focusing on the [Giant-Ant] to the left. It turned its head a little up in response. ‘Move over to me now.’

The creature did so without comment, leaving the other ant to wallow over by itself as the two other creatures in its near vicinity left it alone. Not that the Core thought of it too focused on the next order to think about much of anything else.

‘Your order is to go outside of where I can see, take ten steps more forward, and then return back to me without any further actions,’ the Core ordered. Just like the other creature had done, the [Giant-Ant] moved with no pause, going directly towards the point where the Core could see no further. The entity briefly reminded itself of how right it had been about the creatures having inherited some amount of information from it, since they so perfectly knew where the different perimeters were.

That calming draught of ideas did not last long. The moment that the creature left the Core’s sight, the entity felt a small part of itself going with it. It wasn't anything serious and wouldn't impact performance in any way, yet that connected feeling that it had never noticed before was just… gone. It wasn't an enjoyable sensation.

How long did it normally take for a larger ant to take ten steps forward and then come back? One would think that it would take no time at all, since the creature had six legs to use, but that did not seem to be true at all. The Core certainly thought it took much too long, the seconds passing with great ease. Yet each of those seconds should have been the one where the ant came back in full force.

Yet, after five whole seconds, nothing came back. The Core small a bit of hope from that until-

The connection was remade, stronger than ever, as the [Giant-Ant] came budging right back into the sphere of influence. Yet… its steps were quite peculiar, an irregular swaying happening with each step forward. The Core noticed promptly after that what was happening.

One of the creature’s legs was missing.