Testing out the healing factor of the creatures was the first thing the Core moved forward with. While it did indeed long to look over at the very colourful and vibrant materials lying over by the side of its sight, the Entity knew that the injuries on the ants would regenerate by itself if given enough time alone. And, with how the Core knew it could be when focusing on a single thing, that time would surely pass had it chosen the easy route first.

So with a swift order, it went through and sorted the different injured ants up in a single row. The process was easy enough, a culminating order working just fine when each injury had been properly identified. Though, would that even have been needed? As long as the Core specified the order to only include those injured, wouldn't the ants themselves be able to figure out the last step? It was something to try out next time, the current hour not long enough to force itself to forget the different creatures from each other. Not that the entity even had any idea on how it was meant to do such a thing. Intentionally forgetting? How would that even work?

But, the creatures were nonetheless ranked up in a file. Few had suffered injuries, four in total sporting any type of wound. And, even at that level, only three had suffered enough that natural regeneration would take more than a minute to heal it. The last was only a small piece of a front leg, one which the Core hardly needed to even think about as the Mana from the air simply forced itself into the injured creature.

That was one detail that the Entity noticed. The Mana was moving before it even thought about it. It had been seen to a lesser effect previously, when only one ant in total had been injured, yet… it was more clear now. The swirling of Mana around the Core’s sight could be seen, as the cost of healing caused more and more energy to be funnelled into empty spaces. It was an uphill battle for the [Mana-Generation] from the Core’s side, it automatically already being at its limits and causing the radius of sight to slowly fall inwards.

Not wanting such to happen, the Entity increased it temporarily, it being more than enough for the opposite effect to happen. Not that it expected that to go on for long, however, as more manual control of the Mana would soon be taken.

Each of the remaining injured [Giant-Ants] had a larger chunk of their left or right front legs, to the points where it only stumped still hanging by. Each of them was relatively the same size with the health having been taken anyway due to it. There was a difference of five health points when thinking about it, but that was small enough to still work. It could be taken off when the calculations started up.

What needed to be tested and what were the goals? The latter part was easy enough to answer, the Core wanting to figure out if it could refine the process better. Since it had only gotten to try it out once before, it knew that there were points to improve on. It had previously trusted the creature’s own distribution system, funnelling Mana into the very middle. Could that step not be cut out by simply directing Mana over to the injured place? Things like that needed to be tried out, the idea about using less time and effort while still gaining the same results being more than just something the Core desired.

There were three creatures available for testing. That meant the Core couldn't do the same three times. Or, it could have technically decided to do that and be more sure about what one simple change in technique would do. However, it had neither the patience nor the lack of curiosity to do something so utterly simple. Instead, it started out by trying a more enhanced version of what had been done previously.

Taking a larger hold of the Mana outside the Core, the Entity did its best to cram it all into the centre of the first Ant, making sure that the flow was semi-constant. There were times where it fluctuate slightly due to the Mana naturally trying to fill in the gaps created behind it, yet that was stopped enough to make it have too large an effect. And… the effects from it all were rather curious.

As expected, the accelerated pace of Mana being sent in did increase the pace of Regeneration. It did so at a linear rate, each point of Mana equalling about two to three Health points healed. That was good speed and growth when compared to the healing done before. However, when put into the average count instead, it was just about the same as before. No efficiency was gained.

There might even have been some efficiency lost, in fact. As the Mana was sent into the middle, it was all distributed semi-equally across the body. The connections that funnelled energy through the body didn't just close off when something was being healing, after all. Everything else needed Mana as well, so just prioritizing that single area over everything else was plain stupid. And the Core couldn't say anything else about it, knowing about it fully. It had seen how only a slight part of the Mana it sent in actually reached the wound itself, the rest going all around the insides. And while they did perhaps heal and bolster those other places, they didn't count into the needed tally and were therefore useless.

So the first test showed that the original technique wasn't scalable and was terribly inefficient. The Core had expected as much, having seen the same patterns once before on a lower scale. Now… it needed to move on to the more interesting things of the testing. The new, more focused technique that it had mentioned once before.

The flesh was quite peculiar material. It was brittle at points yet also so strong at others. Many parts of it were made for different things. Some made sure to distribute air and liquids properly while some used them as efficiently as possible. Then, there were also lines where Mana travelled on the body. They were likely the most prevalent type of matter inside the creatures, every part filled up with the small ones. But, in some endings of the body were a larger mass of these threads, places where all the Mana-Threads would gather and bunch up, all connecting for the briefest of seconds before streaming right back out into thousands of small lines yet again, moving around the body in a somewhat random way.

It was that part which the Core hoped to strike. In the legs, just above where the first break that allowed for more agile movement happened, the Entity would instead funnel in there. It hoped that the more focused point would allow for a decreased loss into the other parts of the body, while also creating something that allowed for quicker healing as well. Time was of the essence, after all.

That small reminder was finished off by the Core starting the second part of the test off, putting the Mana in with a great swoop. The constant rate began yet again, everything working just as smoothly as before. There were issues found, yes, but most of those were due to the Entity being slightly unfamiliar with the smaller point of accepted entrance. The bodies were not that big, in the end, and the connections were small when needing to allow for thousands.

But, that didn't stop it from figuring out the process quickly enough. The precious ending was quite serious, yes, but after spending a few seconds perfecting the process, it grew into something so much better. By the time that ten full seconds had passed, there was nothing more to heal, and the Core was able to simply take away the line of Mana being directed into the second Ant.

The results were about what it imagined, but also different enough to cause some minor concern. The level of Mana being put in was the same as what had been sent in on the first and, though that was more to have a more obvious point to relate the tests by. No matter. The improved efficiency was better, the increase of one Health Point per Mana Point being substantial when put into percentages. A thirty-three percent increase was quite wonderful to be gained in one single swoop. If there was nothing else that could be gained then the Core would nearly accept it already. But, there was still a final test to be had before it could say anything else.

During the second test, one obvious flaw had been noticed. It was a minor one in the grand scheme of things, yet the Core did truly believe that rectifying it had the potential of making it more than just slightly more efficient. It was going for something close to ninety-five efficiency of Mana spent actually going where it needed to be going, with the remaining five being due to manual errors that couldn't be accounted for repeatedly.

The Nodes of Mana inside the creature needed to be brought up yet again. As had been stated before, the creatures had many of them, used to allow the smaller threads to bunch up and connect with each other. The Core personally believed that it was a safety mechanism to allow for distribution of Mana to more minor areas when a few of the threads burst or got damaged with time. It wouldn't do good for an area of the muscle or anything like it to be without its supply of Mana due to a minor error that could easily have had some fall-backs ready.

Those Nodes were made to allow for the Mana to move on no matter what, be that up or down the leg, always allowing for movement no matter what. Thinking of them as hubs more than anything was not the most unwise thing to do, as it truly did allow the energy to move unheeded in any direction it desired. And therein lied the problem as well. Yes, the Core was putting the Mana into a specific leg instead of the body as a whole. Yet there was still the choice of movement.

When up in the Main-Node, the true middle of Mana connections ni the entire body, there were so many paths the funnelled-in Mana could take that it was almost impossible to know how many there were. When funnelled into the node inside the leg, there were two ways that it could go, only one of them being good for regeneration of the wound. With random chance, this meant that the Mana had fifty percent to vacate or heal the needed spot the moment that it came into the Node. That was not what the Core desired at all.

Which was why it would take the process one step further. Instead of simply throwing the Mana inside and hoping for the best, it would… order it. Yes, it sounded more than a little peculiar. Doing such a thing to a type of energy, a type of energy that did not have a mind of its own, one wouldn't expect too much from it, right? Wrong. The Core expected everything and more, knowing that the energy had responded to nothing but its intents before.

It needed such a thing again. While there was no resistance to things like [Appraisal], the Core still had great difficulty in manipulating Mana inside of its creatures. Would such a lacking skill be fixed later on? Yes, but for now it had to work with what there was. And that was to manipulate intents.

So, with a focused mind, the Core started to funnel the Mana into the same place as before, the mental state entirely hinged around the fact that the energy needed to go to a specific spot instead of just spreading out like nothing. And… as surprising as it sounded, the process actually worked. There was nothing that remained after only nine full seconds, the ant healed of everything with more than enough Mana inside itself to spare. Truly, it was a sign that things were working better than before.

Three tests had been completed, with the three results showing great promise. Efficiency had been moved up to a staggering five health points per point of Mana. It was a sign of grandeur, and the Core was swelling up with pride because of it. Yet, it knew that there was still something more that could be done. It could still improve the technique.

Yet, there were no more ants in need of healing, every injured one having already met the requirements for having full health. Everything had been fixed and was back to normal. This was not the ideal state for the Core, the Entity sorely needing a subject to work with and refine its technique with. So… when left with no other choice, it accidentally ordered the largest ant around to take a bite out of one of the smaller one’s legs. The attack was swift and everybody was left without serious injury after the fact. Except for the one who had gotten their front leg chopped off, of course. That ant was having trouble standing straight.

Yet, and however evil it might have sounded, the Core still felt like more was needed to truly test out its theory one final time. So with great honour, it made the level two ant bite another leg off. And then a third and fourth, just to make sure that enough damage had been done. The ant itself was without any larger reaction, having been ordered to take it without comment, so the Core was sure it had nothing against it. The constantly flinching antennas couldn't mean anything negative, at least… right? It didn't seem so, in the end, so the Core [Appraised] the creature with great care taken to not disturb it too much. It seemed much too focused on its own injuries, after all.

Character Screen

Name:

-

Gender:

Male

Level:

1

Class:

-

Race:

Giant-Ant

Title:

Dungeon-Born

Health:

60/130

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

The [Giant-Ant] had lost more than half its health to the attacks, the inner parts have fallen out a bit quicker than the Core had been expecting. Yet that was of no matter, the set-up for the last test was more than just prepared. It was all set up. Now, it just needed to make sure that everything would work just right.

Gathering up a larger cluster of Mana, the Entity began to think about what led up to its current way of thinking. When the time was of the essence, was a constant stream really the most time-efficient process? If the Mana was kept to where it needed to be with great care, the actual time had no minimum. All the Mana normally sent in through the process of about ten seconds could be given in a single instant. One just had to know how to control it and the effects would likely be the same.

That’s what he Core thought, at the very least. And that idea was tested out in those next moments. Fourteen Mana had been munched up in a very tight ball, knotted together through close-to-extreme effort and a lot of careful manoeuvring. The entrance to the note was incredibly tight, and the Core refused to waste any of the points on it simply going inside the thing. Therefore, it required the use of condensing the Mana more and more until there was no real room left. There was still some potential to put it more together, much more even, yet the current point of density was more than the Core had every done before. And for good reason, since it was so damned hard to do. It felt a small ache coming from doing it.

The minor pain was more than enough indication that the Core needed to hurry itself up. So… through even more careful of a push, the process was started up, the condensed Mana was put into the Nodes directly connected to the missing legs. More focus was needed here, as the intent was required to share between the legs equally, which meant that more paths in the node needed to be allowed. And with some, another Node needed to be passed through before the leg would be reached, which was just a whole bunch more implicated. Yet, the Core hardly thought about it, the only idea being the result that was needed. It did its best to spend a second preparing.

And then it let it all rain loose.

The first effect was obvious, the Mana spreading out instantly, showing its disdain from being pushed so tightly together. [Mana-Packets] were perhaps extremely useful in events like the one before the Core, but it was more effort than it needed to be. It truly did wish for more [Willpower] at that moment.

But, focus needed to be back on the Mana being sent out. For it was quick, more action-packed, and so much more vital to progress than anything before. The Core needed it to work. It needed everything to show the effects promised.

The first part of the first leg had been hit, wounds disagreeing with it, and the legs lost mass coming back in an instant. The second leg had similar results as well, the leg regrowing to the point where the new mass pushed the entire body upwards a small bit. It would have been a humorous sight if not for the attention put in afterwards as well.

The third leg was finally repaired as well. A bit of the Mana went through peculiar routes, yet the right amount went to the leg in the end, the mass regained and the wound closed. Which just left the fourth, and furthest away, leg. It was the deal-breaker, the Core not sure if it would work. And, for the first instants, it truly did seem like it wouldn't. Mana was breaking off at the wrong path on the second Node, going more inside than it needed to be. Yet… that simply seemed a small issue for the Energy. It went right back to the outside, hitting the leg with a swift push, and regrowing every last bit that had been remaining. The entire Ant was just as good as it had been originally, to the point where it had gained full health with no drawbacks. The process had taken a fraction of a second, upheld the near-perfect efficiency, and had required so little time that it didn't even matter to think about. For now, the Core had reached the peak of what it could do with the technique. And it was happy about it.

New [Skill] has been acquired!

You have learned: [Healing]

And, if that wasn't confirmation enough, the Core didn't know what was. The [System] had acknowledged its efforts, had provided the information needed, and had brought the Entity into a new realm of knowledge. The hardships with gathering up the Mana into a tightly-knit ball seemed easier, though it only seemed so easy when paired with the rest of the process. A slightly disappointing fact, but one that it would accept when it meant that it could know [Heal] with great speed and effect.

With a look at its [Skill-Screen], happiness was being had. It was growing steadily.

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

Healing

Uncommon

Allows the user to heal a specific target

20MP

For the first time, a Rarity other than [Rare] had been found. How good was [Uncommon] when compared to the other? From a guess, the Core thought it to be lower on the chain. It was a depressing moment, but not for long when it was realised that the effects were still the same. And it was all easier! What was the hurt in that?

But, the cost. The Core hoped to the [System] that it wasn't the minimum cost. Else, [Overheals] would be present soon, and that couldn't be a good thing… or could it? Having too much Mana had been tried before, with the result of a bloated feeling, but Health had never been tried in the same fashion.

Something to try in the future. Not something for now, however. The Core felt that the lab-ant had been through enough for now. It deserved a few hours of peace. But nothing more than that. Results still needed to be gained, after all.