“Is it supposed to be… glowing?”, Ephi asked, tilting her head as she peered over the edge of the starfont and into the foggy white-hued water slowly circling within.

The first night hadn’t resulted in much of a change at all, and I’d nearly been concerned that I was missing some fundamental part of its construction when I shut it just before dawn. It was only when I peeked in the next evening that the effects had begun to be noticeable.

The previously-clear water now had a cloudy appearance and even stranger still, it emanated a shifting pale light across the walls of the greenhouse. The light was faint but steady, like the light of the full moon reflecting off the sea even despite it being a waxing crescent tonight. In truth, if it were still daytime out, I was confident I wouldn't be able to spot the light at all.

“Your guess is as good as mine, but I’d say it’s a good sign. The fact that it’s changing at all means that we’re not just gawking at an unstocked koi pond,” I explained, “You uh, probably shouldn’t stand so close to the edge though. Full honesty here, this thing doesn’t say a word about what it does to living things.”

That seemed to be enough of a cause for alarm for her to scoot back just a little bit.

Yesterday, we hadn’t really done a whole lot aside from our standard chores. I worked on retrofitting the gym to work with Ephilia’s new scale which was far more challenging than I had expected it to be, requiring me to shove the walls back so there was a proper amount of room for her to move comfortably.

Most of her time was spent out foraging, and there lay the first real problem we had encountered thanks to her choice of trait. At her previous size, she tended to eat often, but in small quantities. Thanks to [Gigantism], this was no longer the case.

I feared for the Mogo Bush’s life if things continued at their current pace.

Where one or two berries might have sufficed as a decent snack before, that wasn’t cutting it anymore. Now, despite her newfound size, her foraging trips were paradoxically bringing in less starter material for us to begin our farms with. It wasn’t as if I could fault her for having to eat to stay alive, though.

Still, this was a pressing concern since I was hoping to use the plants to experiment with and figure out if I could nail down exactly how ascension worked—because if I could do that, I might be able to manipulate it to my advantage with any future employees and ensure that they always got a decent spread of options.

It was a bit of a long shot, but I felt better about experimenting on plants than on animals.

Dawn was approaching soon, so I began to close off the starfont until evening in order to keep this batch of liquid moonlight safe.

“So Boss, am I still gonna be learning magic today?”, she chimed as she trotted away from the gates as they sealed shut, heading back towards the core room.

“I’m working on it, but it might be a bit tricky for us to get the ball rolling.”

That was the plan, it was just going to be execution that would be the problem. As per usual, a frustrating lack of knowledge on my part had resulted in a bit of a standstill: Ephilia had no mana capacity and every plan I managed to start forming to fix that broke apart spectacularly the moment I started digging around.

An example.

Each of the six primary stats had several things that it influenced. Naturally, that was where I began my search, thinking that maybe if I enhanced Ephi’s wisdom or intellect we might see some change for the better.

⬘ Enhanced Intellect I ⬘

Gives +1 to Intellect. In addition, provides a multiplier to base intellect values, increasing memory recall, comprehension of new knowledge, long-term memory capacity, experience gain rate for spells, and general learning ability. Grants a small bonus to spell potency.

TYPE:

Passive

CATEGORY:

Proficiency

⬘ Enhanced Wisdom ⬘

Gives +1 to Wisdom. In addition, provides a multiplier to base wisdom values, providing higher levels of intuition and better attunement to natural instincts, ability to infer knowledge, and spirituality. Provides a +15% bonus to MP regeneration speed.

TYPE:

Passive

CATEGORY:

Proficiency

Intellect didn’t mention mana in the slightest, but wisdom did—a percentage increase, my arch-nemesis. It didn’t exactly take much mental math to confirm that fifteen percent of zero was still zero. My best working guess was that there was some kind of base value defined by species, which was bad news for us if that was the case. I couldn’t exactly just snap my non-existent fingers and cure Ephi of being a mouse.

If it was just something like being underleveled or needing to ascend further, we could probably manage to handle that... though ultimately, this would take mana, and mana was time.

The rest of the skill list wasn’t much help either. I spent nearly an hour digging through it, looking for abuseable loopholes as if I were a tax attorney. Anything with a flat increase would do, I figured—but I found nothing. Percentage increases, situational boosts to mana regeneration speed, all of those were available in wide supply.

Just about anything pertaining to mana was prohibited to cores as well, so I couldn’t even use the ones I found for myself.

While I found nothing to increase her maximum mana, I wouldn’t call the search fruitless.

⬘ Self-Catalyzation ⬘

The bearer of this skill has attuned their body's flow of energy to allow for metabolic energy to be used in cases where mana is insufficienct. Allows for the use of SP to cast magic when MP is entirely empty.

TYPE:

Passive

CATEGORY:

Proficiency

Technically, this could work. Her mana pool was always empty, so it seemed like a decent option.

Hell, maybe even a better option than just increasing her mana would be—with this, I could use [Core Bond] to effectively add to her energy pool, though doing so would temporarily shut down our one method of healing her.

I took a few moments to explain my gameplan to Ephilia, hoping to earn her approval to move forward with it. She bobbed her head excitedly, but I made sure to add a stipulation to these new skills.

“For now, no magic when you’re out and about, okay? Since this will be draining your stamina, the last thing we need is for you to be miles from home and too exhausted to make it back here. Sound good?”

“Sure, sure!”, she replied almost immediately, leaving me suspicious that she wasn't going to listen.

Urgh. Well, I’d warned her, at the very least.

After a few hours of ‘working’ around the base, waiting for mana to regenerate…

Oh, who am I even kidding? Ephilia managed to find a way to climb up into the aqueducts in the garden and discovered that it was fun to jump in and ride the flow of water.

A mouse just independently invented the concept of water slides without any intervention on my part.

She looped it several times, riding it around the perimeter of the greenhouse before plummeting down into the drainage pool and clambering out to go climb right back up again. She could swim pretty decently too, I was surprised to find out.

Sadly, I had to cut her off after a few rides. The water wasn’t exactly a comfortable temperature to swim in, and while she was insistent on taking a few more rides, she was shivering enough that I couldn’t allow it in good conscience.

I kept telling myself that I needed to find a way to heat this place, but this might have been the final straw. It felt bad enough having to be the ‘stern parent’ telling her playtime was over, but afterward I couldn’t even help her dry off or get warm.

I did my best to create some blankets for her hammock at least, even if they weren’t constructed out of anything spectacularly-warm. I also added some curtains hanging in multiple points throughout the tubes she used to enter and exit, hoping it might help form a basic airlock.

By the time it was all over, I had enough mana to level her up, so I moved ahead with that.

Experience Requirements Bypassed.

DIRE MOUSE RUNT has increased to LVL 4.

DIRE MOUSE RUNT has gained 2 skill points.

DEXTERITY has increased by 1.

DIRE has increased STRENGTH by 1.

Her skill points were already spoken for, so I dropped them into [Self-Catalyzation] and [Life Magic I], getting everything we’d need ready.

CORE-TOUCHED DIRE MOUSE (RUNT) LVL: 4 NAME: "Ephilia"

Traits:

[Forged Sapience]

[Gigantism]

Skills:

[Scavenge]

[Festering Bite]

[Core Link II]

[Core Bond I]

[Enhanced Vitality I]

[Enhanced Strength I]

[Athletics I]

[Self-Catalyzation]

[Life Magic I]

HP: 12 / 12 CATEGORY: Monster

Employee MP: 0 / 0 SPECIES: Field Mouse SP: 5 / 5 SIZE: Small XP: 0% GENDER: ♀ STR VIT DEX INT WIS PER 5 6 5 5 3 7

A field rodent of unusual size under the auric influence of a dungeon core. Possesses enhanced mental acuity and judgement. Force Level-Up Cost: 30 MP Criteria for Next Ascension Tier:

PRIMAL ASCENSION

Cost: 100 MP Spell Name: RANK: XP: DESCRIPTION: Force Rank Up: Mend 0 0% Basic healing spell to bind wounds shut. Cannot restore lost blood or fix broken bones. 15 MP Rapid Bloom 0 0% Fill a single plant with life energy, providing a burst of growth. 15 MP Thornskin 0 0% Create sharp thorns across an area of the caster's body. 15 MP Immunize 0 0% Provide a short-duration buff to disease and poison resistance to a single target. 15 MP Sense Vitality 0 0% Gain an extrasensory perception towards any nearby sources of life within 200ft. 15 MP Camouflage 0 0% Temporarily increases the stealth of a single target by hiding their life signs. 15 MP

“Feel any different?”, I prodded at Ephi.

“Not really. Why, am I supposed to?”

Ah, wonderful—so neither of us knew what we were doing, then.

“Hard to say, really. It looks like that did it, though. It seems like the spells follow a similar pattern as leveling up does: you can do it manually, or I can dump some mana into it to boost your spells up a level. I’m bottomed out on mana for now though, so we’ll have to do that tomorrow.”

Her legs wobbled a bit as she pushed herself back upright, lifting one of her back legs and stretching it. “It’s fine, I can start now,” Ephi chimed back, making her way a bit closer to the tea plant, “I just have to figure out how. So I just have to… focus really hard or something like that?”

“I mean, your spells are all level zero right now—it’ll probably be easier to do that once I boost it up.”

She shook her head and sat down, staring intently at the plant. “It’s fine, Boss. There’s tons of stuff you have to save your mana for, I’ve got this.”

“You’ve ‘got this’? Are you sure? Just, this is pretty unfamiliar territory for both of us, I feel like.”

“It’s hard to explain, but it just feels like… some kind of intuition pointing the way. I’ve got this.”

Hmm. I didn’t want her to strain herself unnecessarily, but at the same time she seemed resolute. Besides, this was exactly the kind of initiative I’d been hoping for, even if it wasn’t at the most opportune time.

“Alright, if you’re sure. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, okay?”

While she sat there busying herself with staring the tea plant down like it owed her money, I diverted my attention elsewhere.

I was going to solve our heating problems once and for all.

The current set-up was fairly simple, with few frills attached. The main line was stealthily hooked into a river a fair distance away from home. This main line fed into a reservoir, which fed the various aquatic appliances we had around the base. So far, this was the zen waterfall in the core room, Ephi’s bath, and the aqueducts in the garden. Any excess flowing into the reservoir spilled over into the drainage system, which was then carried out to sea.

I didn’t want to simply heat the main reservoir itself since eliminating my supply of cold water entirely made little sense, as well as the fact that keeping a vast supply of water heated would take a tremendous amount of fuel. The way I saw it there were two options. The first was to create an auxiliary tank meant to hold the supply of hot water, something far smaller meant solely to keep enough on-hand to fulfill our needs. The second possibility was to not store it at all

If I found a way to generate heat, I could simply run the water through a long pipe snaking around that heat source to gradually heat it up, before passing it into the main water supply--a stone-age tankless water heater, more or less.

I cut out a decent-sized area from the surrounding stone, adding in a basic airflow system so that any fire lit within wouldn’t suffocate itself. What came next was essentially a semi-enclosed firepit, after which I began to coil a pipe of stone around its exterior as tightly as I could manage it. Stone wasn’t the best material for the job, but without processed metal I was limited to my current palette of materials.

Within the bones done, I laid down some kindling made of plant fiber, with several large blocks of wood surrounding it.

All in all, a half-decent fireplace, albeit with absolutely no fire in it.

And unfortunately, my plans to procure fire were tenuous at best. Fuel wasn’t in short supply given that we were in a forest, but the only method I could think of to start a fire was to set up a crystal lens somewhere to focus the sun onto a pile of dry tinder below. Then, it would just be waiting until I got lucky enough for a sunny day without rain. It wasn’t as if I could just smash some flint and steel together to make it happen.

Wait, actually… what was I thinking? I had technology. Sure, it might be primitive in some ways, but the possibilities were almost limitless if I really pushed myself. If I could make something that could smash two stone walls together, I could make a firestarter. Even better, I already had an idea starting to form for it.

Not wasting any time, I got to work towards bringing this invention to life. An ‘artificial caveman’, so to speak: I could make pistons, and I could make a powered, rotating axle. With this, I had everything I needed. Placing a block of wood down on the ground in the heater room, I installed a stone piston into the wall behind it. Opposite from this, I installed a wooden axle jutting out from the wall, just like the one I’d used for Ephilia’s exercise wheel, only this one was powered.

The piston pushed the block into the axle, which spun as fast as I could manage it, carving out a divot into the block’s wall and beginning to collect a pile of sawdust on the floor. Soon enough, faint wisps of smoke began to emanate from the hole, growing in intensity with each passing moment as wood continued to grind against wood.

Bingo.

It wasn’t exactly a roaring bonfire, but it was respectable all the same.

The fire was going, and after double-checking that my pipes were sealed and good to go, I hooked up the flow of water, adding a gate just before the heater to allow me some control over the water’s temperature, once it combined back in with the cold flow. The first result was a surprising amount of steam, but a bit of fine-tuning got it down to a manageable amount. Thinking on my feet, I tried my best to create a vent for this steam to rise into, hoping to channel it throughout the base as a form of centralized heating, but I couldn’t quite get it under control. For now, it would simply be piped up to the surface and released.

The majority of it, at least.

For the moment, I could at least be thankful that I was just a building. If I'd been building this the 'old-fashioned way' with a meatsuit, that blast would've steamed me like a bag of microwaveable mixed vegetables.

I checked back in with Ephilia after that, who was still perched determinedly in front of the plant, eyes narrowed. A quick check brought me the pleasant surprise that she was making some progress, even if it was slight. I still had no idea how she was making progress, but the fact that she had managed to push that meter at all with some kind of simple meditation was impressive in its own right.

Spell Name: RANK: XP: DESCRIPTION: Force Rank Up: Mend 0 0% Basic healing spell to bind wounds shut. Cannot restore lost blood or fix broken bones. 15 MP Rapid Bloom 0 9% Fill a single plant with life energy, providing a burst of growth. 15 MP Thornskin 0 0% Create sharp thorns across an area of the caster's body. 15 MP Immunize 0 0% Provide a short-duration buff to disease and poison resistance to a single target. 15 MP Sense Vitality 0 0% Gain an extrasensory perception towards any nearby sources of life within 200ft. 15 MP Camouflage 0 0% Temporarily increases the stealth of a single target by hiding their life signs. 15 MP

A few more days of that and she just might level it up, though I couldn't help but feel a gnawing urge in the back of my mind to just level it up for her. I wouldn't rob her of the satisfaction, though.

“Ephi, can I borrow you for a few minutes?”

She glanced at the fogged-up crystal dome hanging overhead. “Is this about the clouds you brought in?”

“Clouds?”, I asked, not entirely getting what she was asking at first, “Oh, the steam. Yeah, I guess so. I want you to carefully test the water for me. Don’t jump in, just… dip a paw in and out really quick and let me know if it’s still too cold or if it’s too hot now.”

We spent a few minutes fiddling with the amount of hot water flowing in until it was ‘just right’ according to her, which was good to hear—I let her get back to her studying after that, while I worked on my one last feature for this boiler.

The fuel wouldn’t last forever, of that I was certain. It would need replacing, and I had just the right person for the job now.

Having regenerated a small amount of mana over this time, I began the process of weaving together a new manamite, this time calling on [Manamite Specialization I] to add its voice to this song. Piece-by-piece, this new mite took shape, far larger than the other ones had been. Spindly legs of raw energy twitched their way out of the humming core of light taking shape, one after another until there were far too many for me to count. Like a ball of spiders glued together back-to-back, its form was a bit grotesque to look at, though its ‘core’ was still just a simple ball of light.

With the process finished, it sat unmoving, perched on one of the stone walls of the kiln, dozens of legs anchoring it in place while it awaited its orders. I relayed them as simply as I could: Keep the fire going, using as much wood or plant fiber as you need. Do not let it grow much larger than this, and do not let it shrink too much either.

With that, I passed off control of five of my manamites: a small amount, but I figured it would be enough for a job of this size given how little they’d actually be building.

FRAGMENT OF COALESCED WILL LVL: 2 NAME: "Boss"

Traits:

Skills:

[Botany I]

[Biology I]

[Creator's Insight]

[Mech. Engineering I]

[Textiles I]

[Transmutation I]

Features:

[Manamite Creation]

[Self-Synthesis]

[Manamite Specialization I]

[Material Infusion]

HP: 15 / 15 CATEGORY: Elemental MP: 1 / 100 SPECIES: Dungeon Core MP Rate: +22 daily SIZE: Tiny WEALTH: 5 XP: 16% STR VIT DEX INT WIS PER 0 5 0 9 7 8

Nascent heart of a world-born entity, crystallized from soul energy. Exerts control over a localized area.

Manamite Horde (56 / 180):

55 Manamites

1 Managermites (-3 MP/d)

Boiler Squad (5 / 20):

5 Manamites

Criteria for Next Ascension Tier:

Level: 5

Wealth: 25

Employees: 3

Cost: 100 MP

Facility: Prison Virtual Hoard:

➤779.4 Raw Stone

➤463.6 Loose Soil

➤0 Biological Material

➤345.1 Raw Lumber

➤23.0 Plant Fiber

➤0.3 Raw Crystal

A burst of ephemeral threads shot forth, one each from five of the beast’s many legs, like fishing lines hooking onto the manamites. The spider-like construct began its work at tending the fire immediately.

Satisfied that it wouldn’t need my constant oversight, I considered it mana well-spent. Losing some of my income would hurt, but freezing water would kill my crops or worse, give my mouse hypothermia. With the main brunt of my work complete for the day and no mana left to spend, I really only had a single remaining task I needed to address for the day.

My leftover skill point.

There were a number of options that stood out to me that all seemed to have immediate applications. Still, with our deadline coming closer and closer, we needed to go all-in on figuring out how to get a third of a pound of tea soon. With Ephilia and I putting our heads together on it, our chances were far better, but I needed to stay focused.

I ended up putting the point into [Gardening I].

⬘ Gardening I ⬘

The bearer of this skill has a broad understanding of the low-level concepts required to cultivate and maintain a large-scale garden. This includes concepts like soil nutrition, fertilization, stem cutting, and growth cycles.

TYPE:

Passive

CATEGORY:

Proficiency

Skill synergy detected. Merging... ⬘ Horticulture I ⬘

Skill made from the consumption of Gardening I and Botany I. A working knowledge of various plants, how to identify and care for them, as well as their various produces and how to best cultivate them. Seeds grown by resynthesized plants act as functional copies of their parents, as if produced via cloning methods. These plants start with the same level and ascension traits as their parents. Your first time resynthesizing a species of plant has its MP cost reduced by 50%.

TYPE:

Passive

CATEGORY:

Proficiency

We still had time. We could do this.

Hell, if Ephi could get her magic situated properly, we just might produce extra, I hoped.