The Core was beginning to think that it was getting better at creating creatures. Yes, it didn't truly understand what it was actually doing. It understood the process of doing it perhaps, but it didn't understand the more specific concepts behind it. What decided which chemical of the hundred would be chosen at what point in the armour when only a single colour was used on it all? Was it a gradual change that depended on the proximity of the inner layer of Mana? Or was it dependent on the influence of natural Mana outside that made the difference?

Throughout its time building more and more of the ants, there had been many guesses on how the process worked. Many seemed redundant with time, small details disproving most of them near-instantly. Yet, they still let the Core uncover more facets of the creation, and helped it do it faster, better, and with more strength. With time, it was sure it wouldn't be as hard.

Not that it truly was hard. At the current moment, the entity was decently sure that it would be able to do the entire process without paying attention to its own actions, the steps so ingrained into its mind that there was nothing to really be sure about. The Core had even taken one of the larger steps into efficiency, cutting away the overlooking process to make sure nothing was wrong. There never was anyway. Sure, it could keep it in during the first couple of runs when it finally got a new pattern to mess around with, but no such thing would be done until then. Time was too important for that.

By the first five, the Core was feeling… something. It went quickly with the process, pumping itself full of Mana before spewing it all out again into the kind of form that it needed to be for it to turn itself into a living creature. Those actions were done again and again. By the second time, the Core felt a bit of a strain on its mind. The fourth showed off something close to the sensation of pain but not enough that it was actually taking away health. The fifth almost made it want health to be taken away instead of feeling what it was feeling.

What was that all about? It didn't feel like it had been filled up and nor did it feel like the pain was going through its body. Its mind was just… going wild constantly. There was no refuge in its thoughts, the Core somehow not able to have any calm thoughts at all. It was feeling paranoid as if it had to go through the process a hundred more times just to be sure that none of the current creatures would try to overthrow its position. Which made sense when it was considered that-

The Core had to stop its own thoughts. It had never had to do that before. Why would it even need to do such an… peculiar action? The entity’s mind was meant as a holy place, not something that it didn't have control over. The mental place it called home was the most precious piece of the Core. Without it, there was no actual definition of what it was. It wasn't anything without itself, and the feeling of that being lost was not without some disturbing imagery.

It needed a distraction. And since it couldn't simply calm down and think about plans for the future like it normally did, the Core was forced to start some activity. One… that didn't require all that much channelling of Mana. That was what the entity was guessing it was feeling so tired from. In a recent couple of minutes, it had constantly put out massive amounts of Mana without pause. It would make sense for some kind of effect to come from it. Not that it expected it to come in the current form but for whatever. There were many things experienced that wasn't expected.

With no real plan ahead of it, the Core just messed around with the Mana it had at its disposal. Not that it used it or anything, more… just placing some of what it had around its control and trying to use it for newer things. First, it tried to bring it outside of the field it had already created for itself. Other than just losing control of it after briefly seeing more of the world in that particular direction, the Core had no real results from it. Not that this stopped the entity from doing it again fifty times, each one in a new variety of speed, form, direction, and overall texture.

Or colour, if one liked to call it such instead. The actual colours had started to become too inaccurate for the Core, with the Mana-Sense starting to see more detail of the things. One of those things was a general feel of them, which could be best described as texture. Roughness came from stone and dirt while things like the ants and coal gave off a more… rounded texture. Why one material had the same consistency as a living creature, the Core was not entirely sure. Yet it also didn't know why the ore had so high a Mana-Total inside of it, so it wasn't exactly a new mystery being uncovered, The material was weird and that was about that.

The minutes passed by thinking and doing things like that, nothing of it extremely worthy of much thought afterwards but similarly desperately needed. The Core knew that it was not meant to continue having the pressure on its mind, yet it also knew no real way to stop it. Having still imagined that it was due to the Mana and overuse of it, the only thing that could be done was wait.

Not that it actually was the Mana, but the Core only knew that a bit later on.

Warning!

You have created more creatures under your command than you can control. The negative effects of these actions will worsen with time.

That was the first thing the Core was able to register when the first few heads of the older ants came back. There were bodies that followed as well, of course, but that message proved much too distracting. There was a limit on creatures? And what exactly were those negative effects? The Core did wonder about that yet had trouble with the pain in its mind that just did not want to stop. It actually seemed to have gotten worse.

It was about that point it realised how stupid it sounded, not putting two very closely-related variables together. But, it's not like such a smaller effect mattered much, the screech of an unstable monster coming in at the same moment. From a screech loud and powerful enough that a being without the sense for hearing could hear it, one would expect that it was from some powerful monster that was able to shred everything in the vicinity to shreds. The Core certainly thought about it in such a way when it came around to hear it, the waves of peculiar Mana radiating in its sights causing much fear.

Yet then it honed into where the energy waves were coming from and couldn't help but wonder why they were happening. Three of the six ants that had been sent out into the wilderness had started to screech and twist around on the ground the moment that they entered into the Core’s sight. Why? Were they feeling pain in their minds too?

‘Quiet down,’ the Core sent out to them. Even if they were not meaning to make so much noise, the Entity felt that it was wise to make them stop it quickly. There was too much to lose if a passing ant heard it or felt it. Most likely felt it, now that the Core thought about it. The creatures didn't seem to have ears that were too developed. Higher wails seemed possible but anything not related to it directly seemed out of their capabilities. That might have worked in the Core’s favour at the current time, luckily. Nothing within a kilometre would have been able to ignore the sound, the walls close by rebounding the waves over and over before the Entity finally stepped in and began to silence them by itself.

However, that was the same time that the [Giant-Insects] heard the warning about quieting down. And, as expected, they did keep quiet after that. Very quiet in fact. They hardly moved for several seconds, no passive movement of the legs even. The Core wondered if they were alive until they all simultaneously rose from their lying positions and began to come closer to the Entity.

That had not been an order sent out yet but the Core was happy they were so… quick to respond. Perhaps the effects from the over-creation problem were having an effect on how the creatures responded to the Entity? With the wailing, there was no doubt something had happened. From how the other [Giants-Ants] was positioned and what they were holding, there were also some items that needed to be reviewed when the Entity got it. First, though, there were some idle thoughts to get out of the way. One of those was if the creatures had taken damage. After all, the Core had been looking for an opportunity to try out the regeneration of them and how it could manually accelerate it. Attempts had been made last time, but the limits had not been found. First, though, the damage actually did need to get checked out. Choosing one of the three approaching Ants, the Core [Appraised] the one in the middle.

Character Screen

Name:

-

Gender:

Male

Level:

1

Class:

-

Race:

Giant-Ant

Title:

Unstable

Health:

125/130

H-Regen:

0.12/sec

Mana:

-/-

M-Regen:

0/sec

Stamina:

160/160

S-Regen:

0.15/sec

Cost:

XX MP

Basic Stats

Strength:

17

Wisdom:

2

Vitality:

12

Intelligence:

4

Dex:

16

Willpower:

5

Looking at the creature's health, there did seem to be some amount of health missing. Not enough to truly be worried and certainly not enough to try out more than one simple healing technique. But, it was more than enough to do something, and it wasn't like… Wait.

The Core looked over at the [Title], noting that it had changed from when it last took a look. [Unstable]? The Entity knew of the word yet just what did it mean in the current-

It meant that the ant in the middle had just bitten down on the Core’s surface, taking out forty health in what could only be called a surprising but extreme strike without the entity noticing before it was too late.

Without a second thought, the Core ordered the other nearby ants to attack the ones that had betrayed it. The levelled up Ant beside the entity was the quickest to respond, taking the currently attacking ant by the upper body and viciously throwing it across the room with the use of its mandibles. The Entity briefly thought itself safe from attacks because of it, but the other two [Unstable] creatures simply ignored their soon-to-be fallen brethren and attacked the Core anyway.

But that was enough time for the other ants to return the attacks. While the Core suffered another hit, taking it down to nearly half health, no more bites or attacks on it were possible, the two ants that had done it was bitten to small pieces by the ones that had stood by it just a minute before. There had been no pause in the other ants as they continued to tear the flesh of the creature, each of them making sure that they were as dead as the dead could be. The third and final was also taken care of, though that had been done by the larger ant from before. A larger ant was missing its left front leg.

A few of the ants in its remaining repertoire were actually missing some pieces of their bodies. It seemed that while the [Unstable] creatures could not overcome any of the others, their rampant attacks had successfully done harm, no matter how short-lasting it would be.

The Core would certainly heal them of those wounds soon. But, first, there were other matters to attend to. There were no real issues in figuring out what the matter was, pieces of them still lying in front of the Entity. Since no new pattern had emerged from them, the Core could only assume that it wasn't even a new variant of the creature. It was something mental instead.

Looking back at the previous warning sent out by the [System], the Core noted how the supposed negative effects would worsen over time. The pain in its mind had been instant. The rampant change in allegiance from the ant’s side had been when the new group came back in and reunited the connection between them and the Core, increasing the consequences by so much more. Even at the current moment, it was still aching. More still needed to go.

The pain was increasing with time, and the Core had already rooted the cause for it down. Through going around and ignoring pain not meant to be there to start with, it had developed problems that couldn't be fixed easily. Why was there a maximum amount of creatures? What parameters were there for this maximum count and could it change over time? It knew little. It only knew that it needed to get it back down below the minimum amount.

Sending the creatures outside of the influence did not help the total decrease, instead only making the effects of the count less serious. Yet even the lessening of effects couldn't help but at the current point. The Core needed relief and it needed it now. Choosing three more ants at random, it gave out a mental apology before crushing them with rocks. It was done with pity, yet the Core knew that it was needed.

The relief was instant, calm thought coming through the Core for the first time in what felt like hours. But maybe that had more to do with the lacking sense of time from before. There was still some level of guilt over the actions needed to get that relief, but there was nothing else that could be done. It was the pain of few or the shared pain of all. It was sure they understood.

Now… what to do?