Stamina might have been a vital part of the body’s anatomy. No, wait, check that off. It was a very important part of anything anatomy. Even if the Core didn't have access to it through the system, it knew that there was some part of its crystalline shape that had some manner of influence on it. The [Giant-Ants], as an example, didn't have access to Mana through the system, yet those creatures were able to be influenced through that energy just fine, already having inner organs perfectly capable of handling those energies to some level. The System just didn't acknowledge this.

Why was that exactly? Why did the [System], the omnipresent viewer in every sentient beings life, not think such a thing to be needed to be shown? The Core had wondered about such for a while, only really coming to one conclusion. It… just wasn't important enough. The stat wasn't prominent to the point where it would matter at any level to show it off, just like the stats surrounding Stamina weren't shown off to the Core. It knew that if it tried hard enough, it would likely be able to get them revealed, yet upgrading them at any level would only be discounted as a giant waste.

And, yes, this did mean there were some hard decisions made in the [System]. Instead of showing everything, there was, it only showed what it thought to be important. It was subjective. It didn't always have the same opinion as to the Core or anything else. The [System] had been built by a god, just as the tutorial had told. A god might not have made much sense to the Entity, yet it knew that there was some kind of sentient being behind that name. And sentience implied subjectivity. Would a subjective being not always create subjective copies of itself? No matter how much one tried to be objective, they were always only really looking at things from one side of the world.

No matter how many eyes one had, the mind behind them would still be the same. That was why the Core was happy with none.

However, the lack of foresight on the current events had not been… truly liked in any real way. The impact of the surroundings creatures had been quite high, to say the least. The moment that the [Giant-Ant] began to burst, others withdrew from the surroundings, almost on instinct to not get in the way of anything. This did make sense later on when some of the liquids spewed out and hit a small patch of [Moss]. The resulting damage was acidic, the plant slowly melting away into nothing. While the experience of seeing such a thing was quite good, the Core had to remind itself that it had also been in the creatures line of sight and had therefore been very able to get the liquid on itself. And While it would have been a very fine experiment, it did not want to see what happened when the acid hit the crystal.

Which did lead to the question of why that was even something one needed to ask? At some point, the ant had seemingly gone from perfectly fine to absolutely dead. The process itself had taken less than a second, less than what one would normally be able to react. The Core knew it wouldn't have been able to do anything, even if it had been forewarned about the event, making it wonder on the logistics on how it even came to be. What made it happen, and how would it avoid making it happen again?

The obvious answer was what was found when looking at the moments leading up to the explosion of acidic liquids and mashed organs. What effects had the creature been under at that point? Well… it was around the same moment that the Core had inserted the finely crafted bundle of Mana into its system, intending to let it increase the Mana to full within a single moment. Quite the ingenious idea, stolen with no real thought from how health had been raised as well. The Core knew that it had worked in both theory and practice, making it obvious that there were no faults to be found in that.

But… No, it would not consider the very process faulty yet. Instead, the Core only judged its execution of the process as faulty. There were many facets to how it was done, going from how the Mana had been bundled up to preserve its shape, to how the Entity had imagined the effects. The intent was a very mentally-intensive discipline, after all, and both of such parts had been more than possible to screw up without realising.

Even with all the practice put in with tasks that were much more hard to conquer, the Core knew that even at the current level, it could still screw up at basic things. It was not a lack of skill but a massive amount of time that made small chances grow just as large. There was no shame to be had, as long as it could figure out exactly where it had failed. And, since there were so many avenues to try out, it supposed it needed to get right on it.

The instant thought was to simply bring another of the current ants over and try it out with them, yet… something did not seem right about such. The Core knew that it likely wouldn't find the secret with the first creature or the one after it, making it obvious that any choice would doom such a creature to certain death. A creature that was already hard at work tending to broken [Moss] or making sure that the remaining plants were in good health did not deserve such a thing.

Yet the Core still had to test it out, making it clear that one thing was needed. And that thing was to simply spawn in a new creature to test out on. It had not lived and would therefore not know what was lost. No harm in such things, right?

The process of spawning a creature was quite easy, the ant created in the space of a few seconds. The Core had grown used to doing it to such a level where it hardly even thought about it anymore. Yet, perhaps it did need to start doing it? After all, there had been such a gruesome mistake made only a few seconds ago. It would make sense to make sure that none of such levels would be created again.

…

Another time. For now, it had to keep at it, never truly stopping in the process ahead. Making the creature attack, again and again, the Core was quickly able to bring it down to lower levels of Mana. There were no hardships in it, though the already unbalanced legs made it quite prone to moving around with intentional thought surrounding it. The Core thought about trying to order it to stop yet hesitated when remembering the effectiveness of the last time it had done such a thing. There was no harm in it technically, yet something inside felt bad when having to do it. Since it wouldn't need it that much, the Entity simply decided to live with it. Though, if it messed up because of it, the next attempt would be quite different.

What was there to do now? The Core had a creature at the ready, stamina low and without any real possibility of running away, and it needed to figure out how to increase the stamina without it blowing up. However, this first meant that it had to know why it blew up so that it could then try and circumvent it later on. That was truly the hard part. Yet, it was still made a little bit easier with one simple trick. Retracing its steps.

What had it been doing again, leading up to the catastrophe? It had been inserting the burst method into the creature. Did this mean that the burst method was at fault? No, that did not make sense, since it had worked before on another stat. Or could it be that the Core was missing the technique itself with another skill having replaced it without the Entity noticing?

Quickly getting another ant to bite the new one’s legs off, the Core made sure that it could heal all six bags within a moment, using only intent-based magic. It had the same effect as the standard [Healing], even if the cost was a bit less efficient. No matter. It showed that the process was okay. Making the creatures bite another couple of times, the Entity was back at it with a [Giant-Ant] low on stamina.

With the technique as a general thing not being wrong, the Entity again thought that it was the process used at the time that had been flawed. Or perhaps it was the intent around it that had been off the spot where it needed to be? The latter option was quite promising to think about, the Core having already wondered about that fact. It had no real idea of where it was supposed to focus when transferring the energy over, only thinking that the intent would do the necessary work to make it a success. But, perhaps… perhaps it needed to know a bit more about where the energy was going so that the Core could then direct it accordingly when it was needed. If the intent didn't need to figure that out for itself, there would be more room for making the creature not blow up. That seemed simple enough to have as a conclusion.

Now, how would it figure out where the stamina went? That was easy enough as a question, the Core simply getting in a good position to closely study the Mana-Currents inside of the [Giant-Ant]. Focusing together a small tendril of Mana, it was delicately inserted into the centre of the creatures. There were no issues there, and certainly no explosions to be afraid of. Though… using its own understanding of how the Physical Arcane worked, the Core did reinforce a plate of Magic in front of its crystal. It was not an all-encompassing one, however, but simply one that allowed it to be protected from any liquids suddenly spewing out of a creature.

The progress of actually filling the creature with Stamina was quite steady. There were no real issues seen in the first minute, the container filling up quite nicely. However, if that so-.called container was metaphorical or not was yet to be figured out, seeing as the Core had no real idea of where the Mana was going. It just moved around in random patterns, the Entity able to distinguish it due to the slightly widened Mana-Veins, yet it all just evened out before it reached an end-point. Nothing was done with the energy. It was just all used up in the process of moving around. What was happening?

That was the problem, at some level. The Core couldn't figure out what was happening. Something was happening. Something it had been a witness to for several minutes at that point. Yet what that something was was a subject of controversy at the current moment, any real theories having just as much evidence over the other as there was no real evidence to find to begin with. It was all conjecture at the current level.

The Core just couldn't see what was happening, since the widened Mana-Veins equalled out so quickly. It knew that it was going somewhere, yet there was nothing to truly see since the amounts being moved out of sight were so small. What were the solutions to this? Increase the amount of Mana to make the offshoots more obvious. That certainly seemed like a good idea, though the Core wondered why it hadn't thought about it before. It had done it before, however, during the time where it had tried to increase the output in smaller steps. The upgrade from the current pace would be the last step before the Core normally moved over to brust-fire as the main method. It hoped it would work just as well.

Going through with it, the tendril of Mana that was connected to the creature was allowed to fuel the [Giant-Ant] with nearly double the Mana from that point on. The effect was near-instant, the many tendrils around the centre-organ widening in response to the widened amount of energy. It couldn't just press it all down to the same size as before, after all. There was no real power over that branch of manipulation. Instead, the size increased to accommodate, while also letting the Core see it all with so much more clarity.

Following one of the bigger veins, the Core looked at the process of it slowly falling in size. One would normally think this as being due to the Mana being diverted over to other veins along the way, yet that was actually what was happening at that point. The vein that was being followed was one of the few that were on lonely journeys. The one before the Entity was meant to travel back to the Node in the back, quite a large one with a just as large focus on keeping the two behind legs healthy and in good spirits. This gave plenty of travel time, all of which was spent slowly making Mana disappear into thin air.

Except it wasn't even going into the air. The Core would have seen that happening a million times over. It wasn't going into the organs either, the connections needed for such an effect not being there. Some veins did certainly did it, yet the one that the Core was following did not have that task. It was not one of the many meant for it, instead of dedicated to travel. Which begged the question of why it didn't take all of the Mana with it.

Where was it leaving the energy? Where was it going? The Core thought it would have been obvious with the increase, yet there was nothing to be seen. Nothing at all. What was even happening with it? There was no endpoint, everything had just been taken into secret spots that were out of sight of Mana. It was, without a doubt, the most frustrating thing that the Core had been left to handle.

Which was why it made a mistake a few moments after that. Not really thinking about it, the Entity increase the output of Mana by nearly five, making the size grow to near-abhorrent levels of waste. Yet, it did not care in the slightest, wanting answers to the mysteries that lied before it.

Yet the only mystery it got solved was what it looked like to the individual vein when it was burst open at nearly all sides, forced to go through a process that no creatures would likely ever want to experience. It was almost down to the cellular level, the Core was able to notice it due to the effect and not purely out of sight. The pain felt in the moment was likely the most painful thing a being could feel, however short the experience was. And the Entity had just made two creatures feel it.

The was some amount of pity, some anger at itself for not realising the consequences of its own actions, and then that was some bargaining on how it made things right. With full honesty, it had some ideas about stopping it. The current method was perhaps not recognized by the [System], yet it would be able to get the job done no matter what. It wouldn't be fast and it wouldn't be too efficient, yet with the right speed, it would make everything okay.

That was the argument that the Core devised for its own mind. In some ways, it was a good one, the risks of not accepting it being the death of another or more than just one. It was a risk that was not able to be taken by one with a faint heart. Yet… however lacking a heart the creature had, it was not able to even consider stopping at that point. The losses already incurred would be deemed worthless if it did that. The pain it had caused, the pain that would forever be known about. That still existed, even if it left it all behind. Would it want to waste all the bad that had happened because of the current goal? No! The ants had given their lives to further the group as a whole. Wasting the sacrifice would be an affront to everything that the Core had created over the weeks of being alive.

No… it would continue. And it would find the reason behind the destruction. Thinking about it then, even, there came deas about what had happened. Never once did the focus on intent waver. Never once did the actual idea about where the Stamina was supposed to go change. Yet, when the Core got back up to the levels of a burst-fire, it all exploded into a million bits. While there was the idea of the requirements for the intent changing with higher levels, the idea itself seemed more and more absurd. The place the energy needed to go couldn't have changed, just because the energy being supplied was of higher quantity. Where was the logic in that?

Instead, what if the entrance simply wasn't big enough? That was a thought that came out of nowhere, yet it remained in place no matter how much the Core thought about it. Because the idea made so much more sense than anything else. The parts of the veins made to take in health might have been without limits, yet who said that stamina had to be the same. The widening of the veins was never truly seen at the same levels as when the Health was being increased, making the Core believe that parts of those were sectioned off to different resources. Or maybe one was able to take precedent over the whole vein while the other was only allowed a small portion, making any attempts to widen it not fully able to handle the stress required and therefore creating extreme damage. It would explain how the damage grew out into the body instead of it all being instant, even if the process itself was over within a quarter of a second. It was something to think about.

And something that could be tested quite easily. If there was a maximum, the only thing required was to figure out what it was. Then, the Core would try and know if the maximum could be moved around or past with the use of clever schemes, or if something else entirely needed to be devised.

Going back and creating another creature, the Core got to work the moment that the stamina stat had been emptied. There was no real thought to the animal itself, it simply stood still without being asked. The Entity did like to think that it was due to the creature being able to read the atmosphere. However, it was likely due to the larger amounts of Mana being funnelled out with the multi-faceted intent laced in between giving it quite the clear notion of needing to stay as still as possible. Which wasn't that well done anyway, but it was good enough to work with.

The Core thought about just burst-firing in with a smaller amount to see if that would work, yet it grew away from the idea within a few moments of actual thinking. The maximum input rate was likely quite low, making any sudden intrusions very likely to kill the creature in an instant. Instead, the Entity devised the plan of slowly increasing the Mana-Output of its own, figuring out the maximum of what could be given without the creature dying in the process. It would involve making sure what the output was at each step to a quite ridiculous degree, yet it would help solve it all in the end.

With no qualms about the time needing to be taken, the Core began anew, making sure everything was as steady as it could be. It streamlined the process over the next couple of minutes, increasing the output by such a small amount that the increase could only be measured in the tens of seconds, yet still noting down the small differences with quite accurate numbers. This was done for something close to thirty minutes, each step taking just as long as the last, while there also were a few breaks to make sure that the creature could get back down to its normal levels of Stamina. At the higher outputs, filling up the creature didn't take that much time, after all making it important to not overdo it. While it certainly had attempted it, there was a good chance that overfilling could do the same. However, it wasn't about to find out, already going to such extreme lengths to not make another creature die such a painful death.

The time in between the stamina being given out was spent thinking about either how the process was going or how the journey for another ant was going. For it was not too long ago that it had sent one out to find new materials. It still came back every once in a while, the distance created over time making it quite the travel back and forth. Yet, it was still alive and well, hinting that the attackers were taking a break searching the area around the Core. That could only be seen as good news, even if it forced the Entity to have only eleven minions around it with the last being out scouring the wilds.

However, there was still the process of finding the maximum output. And it was certainly a subject growing more and more important by the moment, each small step making them get close to the levels of the burst fire. It had been a long time coming, yet the Core had noted down the time for each with great precision. They were nearing a successful ten Stamina per second being given out at the cost of only two full Mana per second as well. It didn't take too long at that point to fill the creature up, but that didn't matter, the rounded numbers made it easier to calculate the true results.

Taking another small break, they began after a few minutes. Increasing the amounts, the Core was ready to note down the changes before… the creature exploded. It was not a point that hadn't been expected at that level, the Entity only wondering why it had taken so long. Yet, it did not mind in the least, happy that it was able to see what the maximum output was at the current level. A whole ten Stamina per second. Any more than that and the creature would succumb to the pain and explode. There were wonderings on how the number was so rounded, seeing as the stat surrounding the Stamina was anything but that. What was the correlation truly? The Core didn't wonder about it too much, there still was much to work around.

The maximum had been found. The slightest increase only created death. How would the Core increase it without the effect? Ignoring the slight rhyme, the Core was without the time to think about it. There was likely some solution, yet it knew that it wouldn't be found with the current resources. Instead, an alternative plan had to be made. It desired the [System] granting it a skill for the work done, yet there were no results to be found. It had found data, yet what good did such a thing do without there being a practical use for it? No… it had to figure it out.

[Skills] at the current time seemed to be either passive or instant. While the Core was sure that there were skills beyond that, some of which would require several seconds to prepare, it knew that it wasn't close to such a level yet. No… it had to modify its current plan to take the time needed near-instant. It had to make it so that only a second of time needed to be spared in the send-off.

Yet, therein lied the problem. The creatures could not take in more than ten Stamina per second, yet the Core was expecting to send in a hundred in the span of an instant? It could not be done! At least… not with such an attitude. The framework needed to be remade.

Instead of everything sent in being used at the same time, why did the Core not delay the time? It had intent on its side, and it had shown off the ability to work while still inside other creatures. Why not work with the idea of the Mana slowly being released over a long period, sitting around in the central organ without doing much? It would work in theory, at least. Yet… would that be the same from a practical standpoint.

For the first test, the answer was a hard no. The focus was had around making the bundle of Mana send out the energy at regular intervals, yet such intervals only seemed to get shorter and shorter with time. The Core needed it to be done for ten seconds, yet the intent only had it together for five before going right down. So… more focus was put into the next attempt, though the same results came yet again. It held for five full seconds before stopping and releasing everything.

Another adjustment was made to the plans at the third attempt with the same results as the previous two. The Core was not improving, only killing more ants with no gain. So… it instead went the other route, working the amounts down to what could work. Instead of sending in twenty full Mana, it sent in ten. In total, it created fifty Stamina. Not the most impressive number when compared to what had been done with health, yet there was one big difference when compared to different attempts.

This one worked. It worked without flaw. It gave the creature energy needed to move, everything needed perfectly distributed over five seconds. While the Core didn't truly understand what happened when the Mana entered the body, it knew the process of making it go into it. And wasn't that everything one needed to know? The [System] thought so.

New [Skill] has been acquired!

You have learned: [Stamina-Recovery]