Chapter 19 - Of Manipulation And Teachers

The caravan that transported members of “The First” was embellished with various precious metals, timbers, and decorations. It gave the feeling of some high nobility or king arriving for a meeting or something else.

Though the most noticeable was the pressing feeling of the members’ Tier. The guards and drivers were going around with lowered heads and drops of cold sweat were dropping down their bodies. The people that came to observe the spectacle made a wide bow around the group, though they couldn’t stop looking either.

The most feelable was the visitors' power when they, together, opened the doors to their caravans. All the tier 7 mana spilled out of the carriage and flooded over the assembled crowd and diplomats. While the representatives tried, with all their might, to resist fleeing and not let any fear show on their faces. The crowd themselves immediately shambled back, surprised by their vast strength and the oppressive feeling they gave off.

“The First” met up with the elder council of the dwarven town and, to my surprise, were actually nicer and more forthcoming than I expected. I thought that, as with most powerful people, their money and fame would rise to their heads, but no.

In the discussion between the dwarfs and the guests, they discussed different topics such as trade, information, military, and just general pleasantries. Though it was noticeable that the powerful people were very interested in the dwarfs' metalwork and smithing ability.

Even the difficult sway, dwarfs, were quite flattered by the compliments of the Tier 7 race. So strong was the sway to the dwarfs' normal personalities that I assumed that something was happening behind the dwarfs' backs. I took a closer look at the meeting and noticed distinct strings of mana flowing from “The First” towards the dwarf's brain.

After thinking about it a bit and comparing it to my own, and my creatures', abilities I summarised that they were somehow controlling the dwarfs. No, not really controlling but rather lowering their mental defenses and natural mistrust.

Having noticed this I immediately prepared my representatives, my creatures, and myself to defend against these “attacks. They would probably try something similar against me but were clearly not familiar with my power.

After the meeting between the two parties finished up, the visiting group toured the town and settled down in a prepared manor. I wanted to further observe them and what they were doing inside their temporary home but was surprisingly thrown out.

Just some hours after they had first entered the manor my senses inside the house went black. The area was still within my domain and my senses were functioning but they were just showing nothing.

This scared me quite a lot because this was the first time something could interact with my domain itself before no one even noticed my area of influence. I waited out the night and didn’t notice any change to my blocked senses and neither did anyone leave or enter the building.

On the next day the group met up with several ruling powers within the town, and everyone was influenced by the strange technique. During the meeting, I overheard that they planned to enter the dungeon in the afternoon.

Finally having a timetable I can work with I discussed the upcoming delve and meeting with my representatives. Over a multiple hour-long meeting, we came to various conclusions.

We think that the race has some abilities for manipulating the mind and were quite apt at mana manipulation. Following this though we assumed that “The First” weren’t as physically advanced as they should be for their tiers. This at least lessened our fear that the group could complete my dungeon.

They could of course try to manipulate every single creature, but this would get difficult quite quick because I was able to protect every one of my mobs. While they would be able to break maybe even hundreds of them. At some point, they would fatigue of breaking the protection of a tier 5 dungeon core.

With the fear of impending doom lessened, though not negated, we began to ponder the reason for why they arrived here.

Just as we wanted to discuss this, “The First” entered my dungeon and we had to break up the meeting for my representatives to prepare. Same as before my Boss nighhaunt “greeted” our guests and lead them into the throne room. If they were surprised by my knowledge about their intentions they were got at poker because I couldn’t notice any reaction at all.

Once they entered the meeting table inside the throne room they immediately tried to connect mana tendrils to my representatives. I quickly bashed away their attempts and informed my diplomats.

The galeb duhr handled the situation expertly and welcomed the guests.

“Pleasent afternoon, our master was already awaiting you” “And, sorry sir but we communicate verbally not per mind bride” At this, they both looked at the member that tried to “connect” to them.

This was also the first time I could see a reaction. Together with me bashing away their attempts at control and the response of my diplomats, the member in question opened his eyes wide. He tried to control his features and was ridiculed with a stern blink from their apparent leader.

It was a humanoid person, in size similar to the aggrands, though mentally vastly advanced. It, like all the other members, was fully bald and had a weird tattoo, going down from its head to its toes. I assumed the skin painting to be similar to the ones from the draugr, which used them for strengthening and showing authority.

The rest of their features were similar to those of all humanoid races, though they were completely hair and genderless. Their nails were quite long and completely black which produced a stunning contrast to their bleach-white skin and fully black eyes.

Just as I had finished my analysis of their person they introduced themselves unanimously. I assumed that this worked so well because they were all interconnected by mana tendrils.

“We are THE FIRST, the First on this world, the First to be born into it, the First to advance further and the First to rule it.” “We approached you today to inquire about your existence and inform you of various matters that do not yet lay within your knowledge.

How they all spoke at the same time and looked directly at where my “Main eye” lay was quite creepy and weirded me out. Though I was surely intrigued by what they had to tell, as it seemed they were not aggressive so I ought to indulge in the information they let free

After the introduction, they explained to me that they were an organization founded and ruled by the race of Mind flayers. Though they didn’t believe that they had yet achieved the stage of a full mind flayer and rather just a lesser or even minor stage.

The companies goal was to unite the world under one order and to enable the growth of the rightful races. I found their goal to be a bit tunnel-visioned but didn’t say anything in this regard.

Once they had finished their explanation they wanted to convince me of their power and vast knowledge by giving out some of the information they knew. They thought that I wasn’t able to get access to a lot of information because of my immovable nature, they thought. And they wanted to deepen the relationship between our two parties by coming forth with a gift of knowledge.

I was not one to look a gift horse into the mouth and they started to explain some things which they thought I didn’t. Supporting their teachings were books, a rare product used to record information.

To my surprise, once I absorbed the books I knew all the information that was written down in them. So book by book and teaching by teaching I could feel my knowledge grow. I now could explain things I didn’t understand before or noticed things that felt frivolous.

The information exchange took all the afternoon, after which “The First” excused themselves and returned to the manor.

I was quite confused by the interaction, it was not every day someone rich and powerful just comes over to teach you a large part of the information and knowledge that has been collected around the world. Quite weird but certainly not appreciated.

The mind flayers had taught me about the tier-evolution system that influences the whole planet. Apparently, the tiers are grouped in various stages. Tier 0 to Tier 4 is the Mortal realm, within which every creature develops their soul from a soul seed into a full soul at Tier 4.

The next stage they knew about was called the Immortal Realm and grouped up Tier 5 to Tier 19. From Tier 5-9 the creatures were within the subsection warrior, 10-14 was master and Tier 15 to 19 was Hero.

After this, even they didn’t specifically know if it was true, but it was rumored the stage was called the Godly Realm. As they had taught me of the Tier groups I asked them from where they knew that when no one had yet reached this late of a stage, but they had simply ignored me and went on.

Once they had finished this topic they had explained to me the three fundamental forces of the planet. Mass, Energy, and Mana. Mass was everything around us, earth, stone, plants, and flesh. Energy, on the other side, was the result of Mass interacting with each other, this included kinetic energy, heat energy, or gravitational energy.

The last part, Mana, was the most complicated. It was a hybrid of the two and could freely interchange its form from Mass to Mana to Energy and the same way round. How it was produced hadn’t yet been found out but it was assumed that it formed from either mass or energy when they were clogged up in large numbers.

Furthermore, the mana that was present around the world belonged to certain attributes. They could range from fire to water to wind or earth or more complicated elements such as Steam, Gravity, Illusion, or emotion. Building the basis for all these elements though was pure mana.

At this topic, they had stopped their teachings for a while because one of them had noticed something as they had been talking about the subject. It had discussed its observation with the others, mentally and had then finally revealed what they had been talking about.

They had told me that I was a pure mana dungeon core. Quite a rare attribute for every species due to its rarity in great amounts and difficulty to be infused into a creature because of its natural element.

I had been quite surprised by this but sadly hadn’t been able to base my apparent specialty on any comparable subjects, because I didn’t know of any other dungeon cores. Which I then had immediately asked the mind flayers. They had told me that they did not know of any confirmed sightings but some subjects had noticeable similarities with me. This had immediately raised my mood and I had continued listening and absorbing

The next thing they had explained to me was magic, enchanting, wizardry&sorcery and runes. Magic was the name for the art of any kind of mana manipulation, of which there were tons. For example, Wizardry concentrated on controlling the mana within oneself and using it outside and within one's body. On the other side, sorcery used the mana around oneself to use within and outside.

Furthermore, runes and enchanting were similar though not the same. While runes were sigils that could control mana into doing different languages, it could be thought of as the language of mana. Enchanting itself was rather the infusion of an object with attributed mana in specific rations to achieve some kind of result.

After they had explained everything they knew about mana they told me a tidbit of information they thought I would find interesting. They had wanted to lure me into exploring the surface, I assumed they wanted to get better access to me through this. Though it would not have worked if not for the small bit they had revealed at the end. During their explanation of the world, my surroundings, and the surface above me, they had mentioned the different races living above.

Such as elves of various variants, beastkin, and monsterkin, were-races, and humanoid monsters or gnomes and humans, but also orcs and avians. The last two races were those that interested me the most, the orcs because they were told to hold beasts of burden called graugr. The same graugr that forced me to flee my birthing place and nearly killed me.

The avians on the other side were similar in description to my beloved narcullians, just a bit more feathery in nature. I hoped that they could maybe be descendants of my past narcullian commander.

Though the mind flayers thought they would convince me with the possible adventures of the surface and my curiosity, in the end, I would rise to the surface for revenge and reconnection.

Finally, with a goal I could work towards I didn’t lazy around for long and started my next adventure, up to the surface!!!