Shopping and request list for dummy:

We need more eggs. Can you get a dozen? The non exotic kind please – last time you got weird mana warped ones and they tasted like cinnamon and sparks. Did not appreciate that with my breakfast by the way. Should have put a disclaimer saying they were for baking. Our universal mind bridge is broken. Can you bring it in to get repaired? You know I need it for work. ManaCorps gave me a bonus so I think we should splurge on a cleaning rig. Just imagine the time we will save with a lil magic flying scrub/dust/mop doing the cleaning around our apartment! Other than that, our Timmies coming of age soon. You know he dreams of adventure – can you sit him down and try and convince him to pick a more useful class? Something like artificer instead of “big stick man” or whatever combat classes are. I just want what’s best for him and he listens to you.

Love you, <3

Excerpt from a typical city family's post-it notes.

The first thing Innearth did after confirming the Demon's death, was to fill in the hole to the upper parts. Filling the area with stone, he tried to make it unobtrusive and hidden.

He didn't know if there were more Demons. He was not prepared to explore. There was safety in hiding.

The next thing he did was review the damage. His upper two floors were frantically working to redistribute mana – the thick clouds of smoke that hung in the air slowly dissipating as the mana pushed them around and let them settle on the walls and ground. When the demon had forcefully pulled the ambient mana out of his walls and floors, his regeneration had actually gone down for the first time since he had been born.

Now that it was bound to the ground around where the demon had died and non-bound parts were re dispersing, his regeneration was ticking back up. Currently 6.1 it had dropped from 7.6 down to 2.8 before reaching its current point. Even as he watched it flipped from 6.1 to 6.2 showing its constant rise.

Of his monsters only 3 remained alive: Pool Snek, the nameless water slime, and somehow the pile of sand that had been bitten into was still aware.

As all his monsters had died simultaneously, his experience had shot up and he received countless inconsequential memories. The sum of their lives, being given only a second of time to review before the next arrived. All his monsters except for Silver.

His thoughts about her were weird. His monsters were toys and disposable. They were just a part of his body and replaceable. And so, his grief was probably closer to that of a child that had broken its favourite toy than true empathy. He didn't care for all the countless other monsters that had died after all.

But that apathetic feeling was marred by an extreme...annoyance that he had lost out on his only ascended dungeon monster. She was no longer replaceable. She was no longer a part of his body but her own creature.

She could have taught him a lot and as soon as she separated, a faint part of Innearth had upgraded her from toy to pet.

It was like someone had just shot his dog and he wanted revenge...but the demon was dead so all he had left was sadness.

If she had still been alive, he probably wouldn’t have played with her life as much… which was slightly contradictory as the experience and fighting was what had grown her to that point originally.

It's just so sad that she was wasted, with no time to properly grow. So senselessly too.

I don't think I want to let anyone die a pointless death. It might have been okay if she was instrumental in killing the demon… but it died because of an explosion that she didn’t even cause. Wasteful. Cutting potential is...sad?

His dungeon instincts to provide "fair challenge" reaffirmed, he investigated Silver's dead body.

She should have returned to him when she died, but the process was taking far longer than the nearly instantaneous deaths and revivals that had happened with all his countless other creatures.

Checking around the body he found a floating white spark the size of a marble. A thousand times as big as any of his normal sparks, it sat in the air.

It slowly released wisps of inverted white mana as it shrank. He watched the wisps being absorbed by his influence as they evaporated off the soul. His experience ticked up by one as he watched. Getting closer and closer to level 12... but he assumed the whole spark would need to be consumed before he got her memories.

Wait there's still time.

Trying something he knew was possible – but that he had no specific information on, he pulled out some mana and converted it to the Death element.

Injecting the soul with Death mana, frantically hoping he wasn't too late, the light flickered and shrank suddenly, all at once.

Shrinking down to a single point, it suddenly grew again, reaching roughly the same size as it had been before. It was turned inside out; the new marble no longer gave off wisps of light but stayed contained. This marble’s colour was Grey and marbled with black webs, but it was now stable.

Pushing the soul back into the broken crushed body he waited for a result.

With a shuttering movement, the undead snake came to life once more. Or perhaps unlife is the better word, for the zombie snake that was made was very obviously not aligned with Life anymore.

Disappointingly slowly it raised its head up and started moving forwards, as if pulled by a thread.

Some chips of the still shattered scales fell off it, a faint trepid smear of its silver blood laying a trail out behind it.

Pushing Death mana towards the zombie snake, it sped up slightly as it passed through the mana, before slowing down once more as it dissapated.

It's not the same. It's not an equivalent exchange at all. This monster is still broken and won't give me anything as strong as an awakened dungeon monster would have. Honestly, I can't bring myself to be attached to this revived monster. It's no longer Silver. This is a new monster. A sad useless one. It doesn't even feel like the same creature, even though it's technically the same soul.

Also, the demon didn’t leave a soul behind. More proof it’s a…unnatural gross mess.

I'll try and experiment with this death creature later, but I'm not going to waste my time on this any further right now.

The only good thing about this experimentation is it pushed his experience the rest of the way – tipping him over the ledge that was level 12.

He didn't have time to celebrate his new level, however. His defences were not made yet.

Spawning a greater crystal snake so as not to waste his mana Innearth observed his dungeon critically.

When Amy and Bose beat him he had been safe. Neither of their monsters made any sign of wanting to attack him, simply defending themselves when placed. After losing, he had felt competitive and desired to make many strong templates for his dungeon. On his own terms, he had desired to tread. And he wasn't even that wrong. He had thought himself safe before he broke the surface, he had thought he had time.

His trashing by a demon was a freak accident in that train of thought. He really couldn't have guessed that could happen so there was nothing wrong with his risk assessment.

However… tossing out those petty goals of his for now, he needed immediate strength. Immediate knowledge. He needed to protect himself before he could relax and experiment in peace.

He wanted a monster strong enough to fight off that demon all on its own. One pouring much more of his time and effort into than his normal monsters. He wanted a “Boss Monster”.

He wanted to make sure a foreign monster couldn’t just progress straight down his corridors, linearly heading towards his core. He wanted a way to protect himself from wild beasts. He wanted “Traps”.

I hate how weak I was. I need to be strong before I'm allowed to play. I need defences so strong no demon can ever hurt me. And I need them soon. I don't know if that was the only one.

Innearth already had a vague idea of what he wanted to do for his first boss monster. However he first checked the market selection to see if there was a better option. There were plenty of boss monsters being sold...but very few schematics being sold in comparison. They are mostly unique monsters, so I guess it's reasonable that they don't have as many repeatable schematics?

Not seeing anything comparable to his plan he returned to the moving living slime of wet sand. It was the only monster that had faced the Demon and come out alive. It was the only monster that had been eaten and survived.

I think I’ve underestimated the sand. The problem of course was while it survived it had also done zero damage. I have to up its attack power somehow.

Tossing off the goal of learning everything himself, Innearth started making purecores' to buy information on the market.

Waiting till he regenerated before popping one out, he went to the store and checked guides. There was the mana guide he had snubbed weeks ago – bought.

Reviewing it he saw both what he had found out – most of the information he had already discovered on his own… his decision to buy wavering – along with several dozen examples of useful materials.

2 metals in an alloy and Earth+Fire mana made a Sword mana material. This mana extended any angle to be sharper than it had any right to be, running the concept of destruction and cutting out a mm or two from the blade's edge. It also allowed weapons that worked extremely well to be made. The problem was that while weapon mana would make weapons better and had a sharpness trait, using it on claws or teeth would not be as effective as a handheld weapon…for some reason. Maybe due to it being Sword mana not claw mana?

Strong but not useful right now. And if I want to go down that route, I’d have to make monsters that can hold weapons to take full advantage of it.

The guide was useful but limited – it listed some of the "most useful" mana types and traits but had nothing that he could see that would enhance the sand.

There were several several strong-looking combinations that Innearth could see but...the Demon had seared right through his monsters’ flesh like it wasn't even there. He could tell it was a magical attack somehow and nothing in this guide talked about how to defend against magical attacks.

No, he wanted to give power to the only thing that had survived an attack, it felt like the best plan of action to protect himself. So, seeing as how his first purchase hadn’t helped he bought a more comprehensive guide to materials.

This guide was expensive. Quite a bit more than he would willingly spend otherwise it was priced at 2 tier 2 Purecores or 10 tier 1 Purecores. However, it was rated high in the "useful" category instead of the beginner information he had been in before.

This was a guide that both Tier 2 and Tier 3 cores found useful and was probably chump change to Tier 3s.

Seeing the “ideal” or cheaper version was the more advanced cores (600AMU * 2 instead of 200AMU * 10) Innearth was forced to use over his entire mana pool on a single core. Taking multiple small breaks, he pushed more mana than he had ever tried before into a small magical sphere that positively shone with mana to his non-strained sight.

His attempt used just over 200 mana in as small an area as he could manage. Next, he wrapped that in a still excessively concentrated area – this one using just over 400 mana as he wrapped the inner core by a thick layer of material the same concentration as tier 1 cores. Finally Innearth finished it by making the shell and smoothing it over before staring down at his new tier 2 core. Despite his best efforts of compressing the thing, it was still nearly twice the size of a Tier 1 core.

I should figure out why people would prefer using these on their monsters.

Moving to buy the information he remembered he had bought a "2 for one primer" and had only implanted the tier 2 information. Opening the old trade he quickly absorbed the tier 3 primer info to see if it had anything he could immediately use.

Lots of information on the system controls that were given at tier 3 and how to use them…but also some common knowledge on tier 2 monster cores. Gives more advanced access to personal mana…resulting in spells or skills depending on the monster and core affinity…Okay so if I want to make a spell caster I have to use a tier 2 core minimum or hope a monster evolves into the role. I’ll see about that after making my boss monster.

Spending the time to make a second "tier 2 core" he finally had enough to buy the guide. The two cores took him roughly 2 hours, making him curse his lowered regen. I don’t have time for this I need protection sooner.

He was clutching at straws, but he needed options and it seemed like this was the best way to provide them.

Buying the information, he scrolled through a long list of materials and their effects.

Okay, finally. Finding something useful he learned about mercury.

Apparently, mercury was a liquid at room temperature (or bromine if he could find that). It was also a liquid made from a single physical element, unlike water. Because of that, you could make liquid fire with it – something impossible with Water mana which corrupted Fire when combined. It was also the most effective element to use with Water mana…but that seemed kind of a waste.

He could imagine how useful dispersing liquid fire through his monster sounded...but he was worried that the Water mana in the sand would react badly with the fire in the liquid fire. No there was a better option shoved in the "curious but less useful" section.

Kinetic liquid.

For some reason, the liquid acted on anything submerged in it but not itself. Closer to Gravity mana than Kinetic in that manner. Thus, a pool of Kinetic liquid that was aligned in one direction would push anything through it in that direction.

Weirdly enough it wouldn't mix around so the direction was mixed. Similar to the liquid crystal he had made it would stay in one direction unless something specifically flipped its polarity.

I have an idea that relates to the vibrating version of Kinetic mana. I’ll have to get some of the material first to see if it works how I’m imagining…but let’s see.

Searching the market excitedly for mercury he found...that materials had insane prices.

Up until now, he had only been buying information. However searching for an element he wanted, made his view on prices explode. Some unique materials were going for 100+ tier 1 purecores. That. Was. Insane.

They weren’t just priced high however – some Cores had set up a sort of auction. They kept editing the description to the highest bid result and claimed they would trade to the "last bid placed after 24 hours without a new bid".

So, people are buying them this high too. Damn.

Still hopeful that mercury was less expensive than the unique magical materials, he found it when filtering to non magical elements.

Several Cores were selling it, but the cheapest version was set to 3 purecore’s for 1 litre…a sad slightly pricier amount than he had hoped – but good enough for the diluted monster he was planning on making.

And absolutely required based on his goals. He checked bromine as well as a backup, but it had a similar price so he dismissed it for now.

Working to make as much sand as possible he slowly filled the burnt plant room with material on a scale he had never attempted before.

Working away on it he slowly saved up and bought 4 litres of mercury and started combining it with Kinetic mana with no direction.

Letting the liquid soak into the sand started making the sand vibrate against itself – the magical vibrations no longer making it slippery but forcing the sand to grind and smooth out everything it touched. The vibrating sand quickly eroded the bottom of the room – and he hadn’t even finished making the monster yet! Forgetting his urgency somewhat as he made the boss monster he started experimenting.

Adding a tiny bit of liquid crystal to the vibrating sand seemed to mess up some of the vibrations – the grains of sand being stuck together in several wire-thin lines.

Taking a drop of the unstable liquid crystal material, also added a strange amount of stability to the clumps. Only really affecting the wires of liquid crystal they melded to a point where the bed of sand periodically shot small needles up into the air.

Continuing his “a bit of this a bit of that” concoction of a boss monster, he made a high concentration mana crystal using Crystal mana and silicon. When he threw it into the mix it immediately shattered, as the vibrating sand broke it into smaller and smaller pieces. Sharp pieces.

He used some Life mana on some of the last bits of mercury – making a non-consumable regeneration fluid – and dropped bits of that into the concoction.

Should help it regenerate very slightly. If I put a crystal beacon right outside the door it might affect it too. Hopefully should mean it can fix itself even if eaten by a demon or otherwise partially destroyed.

As the sand was getting wetter than he wanted, he added a bit more straight “sand material” and then moved back to observe it.

The end result was a thick bed of sand, with several sharp crystal shards that occasionally melded together with the sand and then shattered, as the vibrations ripped them apart again. Thin needles shot out of it in random patterns and he imagined anyone who stepped into or was engulfed by the sand would be shredded apart like sandpaper without proper defences.

Life + Kinetic on the rank 2 mana side, Water + Earth on the rank 1 side. I think this is the maximum spread I can stuff in the monster with zero repercussions.

Checking the known offshoots of all 4 of those he re saw the 4 slivers of Earth – Crystal, Metal, Stone, Dirt. I don’t think any of these will drastically change the concoction.

Water split into weird water bodies – River, Lake, Ocean, Reservoir – and he couldn’t imagine how that would help. Kinetic he could alter into Gravity mana but there didn’t seem to be any materials that could meld into his blob in a useful way. And Life didn’t seem to have any known offshoots, so he was happy with the healing liquid he had already used.

Finishing his checklist of power options, he gave life to his room-sized bed of death.

Innearth watched as it slowly bunched together – creating a truly massive lump in the center of the room. Tendrils of sand pushed out of it occasionally, before falling to the ground, or shaking themselves to bits. The boss monster had pretty good control over its whole body but didn’t seem to have finer control over portions of its body and it soon gave up.

It's bigger than Amy's monster...but hers wasn't a boss. Or so she claims. I think you're supposed to make fodder as well as bosses.

Exploring the room, it ran its body over the walls and pushed itself up as high as it could just barely touching the ceiling.

Everywhere it passed was sandpapered out into smoothness the whole room getting more and more of an egg shape as the square was forcefully reshaped.

Dust filled the room from all the stone being ground away and bits of it stuck to the monster and were assimilated as it turned more and more grey. A large part of the demon's blood and affected stone was smoothed over and bits entered the mess of sand.

As it had already been created no visible magical effects were made but small sparks of colour were added, giving the sand pile the look of an oil spill.

Finally, content with its situation the blob settled into its new home, practicing controlling its body as it lay there.

Okay! I need to test out my bodyguard, I guess.

I want to try using some of the demon’s blood/infused stone as a material in a monster…but I’m afraid it might make another demon and I really can’t afford that… I’ll try that later.

Spawning one of each of his monsters in the room, he watched as they either attacked or were attacked by the blob. Despite their relative strength, they seemed completely countered as they were absorbed shredded and then spat out.

Not once did it appear damaged by his regular monsters.

I need to make a caster-type monster to see how it deals with magic before I’m happy with this boss, however. I can’t tell how it would fare against the demon that I just faced.

I think it might work well? The demon would obviously eat a bit of the blob… but I think it could be shredded apart if it was dumb enough to get captured. And this blob can be slightly eaten without too much damage.

I wonder if it would continue to vibrate and shred apart the demon’s insides if eaten?

Probably not, that mouth was weird.

I think it might be able to kill the demon that passed through. If I can't make the rest of my defences stronger I might just make another one.

Anyways! The next step in my grand plan is to re arrange my dungeon layout such that nothing can pass straight through it!

Just as he started to try and make offshoot rooms a splitting feeling came over him again, indicating that his 4th floor was forming. He hadn’t been digging as much recently… But then again, he had expanded into those halls which certainly counted, and the concentrated demon death HAD increased the concentration in that area excessively.

Transporting most of the demon blood stone by ripping tablets of it out of the walls. As well as sliding slabs that had already been smoothed out by the sand boss from under its mass – shaking the end of each slab to get the sand off it while the boss playfully tried to grab them back – he transferred them down to his lowest floor.

The mana spread in his dungeon slowly stabilized as his 4th floor was created – a much bigger floor than his previous, it technically extended out into the claimed hallway of the unknown dungeon. Each floor was slightly bigger than the last so Innearth took the time to “move the goalposts” in terms of rearranging the floor separators. Painfully slowly he made sure each floor was roughly the same size. The lowest “floor” increasing its area by roughly 10% by this sorting.

Abe: hey Hey HEY! What's up mah dude. I have some amazing combinations to show you.

Abe: Explosion mana is the bomb.

Innearth: oh hey sure, what's up.

Abe: You good? That’s a bit less enthusiastic of a response bro. I need more Energy! Explosions make you stoked do they not?

Innearth: yeah just busy rearranging stuff. My 4th floor is forming and I feel weird.

Abe: Oh that makes sense. Splitting is a mood.

Abe: Anyways!!! Check it.

Innearth hid what had happened to him from his closest friend. He didn’t want to let on how close he had come to dying and felt hollow, as he reviewed the information packet he received.

I would have loved this a few days ago. I hate not getting excited by something I love but I'm too worried about my defenses right now.

The packet contained all the info about all the mana types and materials Abe had figured out, after combining Explosion mana with everything the explosion Core could think of.

Abe's existence actually reminded him that he could have tried asking his friends for help when the demon was attacking. Bose or Amy might have lent him a monster that could have stopped the demon…but he remembered the Core in the public chat asking for help and being ignored.

I can – I did this on my own. It's fine, I’m alive. It's too late now and there’s no point in bugging them...and I really don't want to be a bother.

Wanting to reciprocate the gift he gave Abe all the Crystal mana combinations he had found – many weren’t even in the guide he had bought – and added some of the combinations from the guide he thought Abe might find useful.

Abe: Damnnnnn bruh. How did you even find out about sword mana? I wonder if I can make and exploding sword mana. Swing? Boom.

Innearth: Ah! glad you liked it. I’m going to be doing a lot of redecorating. Make some traps. Focus on self improvement. I’m still here if you ever need help but I’m going to be using most of my focus on dungeon design for a bit. A few weeks or something no biggie.

Abe: no worries! Take care man. Right back at you in the “I’m here if you ever need help” department. We’re bros! I gotchu.

Feeling slightly guilty for not telling Abe about the demon (after that last message especially). Innearth returned to redesigning his dungeon. Returned to start on trap design.

Just over 2 days had passed. He had part of his defences but he wasn't as safe as he'd hoped yet.

Indecisive Earth Level 12 113/286 exp to next level. System Access Level 2 1/2 requirements met to advance. -1+ Unique Monster ✓ -Level 20+ Stats Mana Regeneration 7.5 unit/min Mana Storage 286.0/286.0 units Physical Storage 45% Percent Capacity Titles. Earth Mana Specialization, Crystal Mana Specialization