Manning

The next five days passed in a sort of daze. Nothing eventful happened as I continued to expand my domain as far as I could, dominating every small critter and plant that I passed along the way. Finally, I’d hit my upper limit. Expanding my influence had gotten harder and harder the farther I ventured with my mana from my core, and it was time for me to ask Ash what I should do about it.

"Well it’s about time now, isn’t it? You have a diameter of almost 4000 meters, even if there isn’t much going on within it. If you want to get any larger we are going to need you to level up."

Ash had already told me what leveling up meant. It was the term used for dungeons when they expanded their core to increase their mana capacity and control. According to Ash it was called leveling up because dungeons usually did it when they'd maxed out their influence on their current floor (or level) and needed to move on to the next increment. Other species just referred to their version of the process as evolving.

Apparently, Cara had already pushed her level over to 2 while I was unconscious, and I'd been behind this whole time. I probably could have leveled up sooner, but I'd been putting it off, so I could figure out about how much more land I'd be able to claim each time I leveled up. That and I wanted to claim as many living creatures as I could to aid in my recovery time afterwards.

Much like the process I did the first time, I tuned out everything around me and looked inwards. As I peered into the depths of my core, if they could be called depths while I was still so small, I tried to envision what I needed to look like. To be honest, the image that came to mind was much the same, if not just a larger version. I thought that was strange, so I studied the image a bit more.

Sure, enough below the surface facets, my core wasn't supposed to be completely smooth. If I peeled away the top layer of what would be my new core I could see near microscopic spiral patterns.

As I understood it, that meant I was to increase my mass not by just pushing against the insides of my current core with mana, but I had to be spinning the mana as I did it. What gives?

"Ash, why does it feel like I am supposed to spin my mana as I push this time, when last time I just pushed?"

"It's part of basic mana manipulation. As you get larger, to refine your mana to its highest capability, you are going to have to spiral it as you absorb it and as you expel it as well. Cycling it like that purifies and condenses it, so that way you can store more, and your capacity is increased. Your second level has you designing your core like that is, so you can store more mana with less conscious effort, and so that it starts to spiral itself before it reaches the mana pool. It makes it far more efficient."

Right...

"Well if I'm right this is going to take a lot of mana, Ash. Hopefully I don't black out again but even if I do I should wake up a lot faster now that I am pooling so much mana passively."

I started trying to spin my mana pool up, which is a lot more difficult than it sounds. I'd had a lot of practice manipulating my mana outside of my core while claiming land and creatures, but using it internally was a whole new deal. I decided I would try to use images and sensations to help me again, like I'd done in the past.

I pictured the river that I had claimed a couple days back. When I recalled the way, the river flowed so naturally, I could feel a little bit of stirring within myself. I pictured the large log that was sticking out in the riverbed, and the way the water slammed against it, forcing itself around it on both sides. My river wasn't strong enough to create enough of a rise, so I mentally upped the speed of the water in my mind. I was almost in awe as my metaphorical river started thrashing against the tree log.

I could feel my mana pool kicking up in response to the violent imagery, and rather than let it slip away, I grabbed both sides of the stream from either side of the log. I pulled one up and continued it clockwise around the log, and the other down counterclockwise along the length of this fallen tree, spiraling it faster and tighter. when I was satisfied with the speed and density of my water spiral, I switched my thoughts back to my mana pool while keeping the image of the twister.

It worked. Whereas I usually envisioned my mana as a calm lake, currently it was a raging twister of two streams of mana spiraling in opposite directions. I pushed the clockwise stream against the top of the inside of my gem and did the same with the other stream against the bottom facets.

Pressure. It felt liked someone had poked a hole in my skull and started pumping it full of air, trying to get me to burst. I felt like I was flexing against my barrier in every spot at once.

My mana was draining away (pun not intended) at a speed far greater than I was regenerating it. I started trying to pull more mana from my environment to avoid bottoming out. Unfortunately, my concentration was focused primarily inwards, and I started drawing a bit too much.

I managed to avoid blacking out long enough to take in my surroundings and observe just how much more... empty? I felt.

The last thing I remembered as I faded to black was looking around and seeing all my fresh green grass, or what once was. I was in the center of a field of yellowed and brown dead grass, with deceased insects littering the ground. I could feel my hedgehogs nearby, cowering in fear, and my owl in its tree. He mostly felt annoyed to me.

* * * * * * *

Cara

Everything was going well for Cara. She had finished renovating the mineshaft that made up her first level and even found a nice cave system when digging out the second floor.

Her core was located at the end of her first floor, and she was a bit hesitant about moving down stairs now.

The crunchers were currently regurgitating stone back into one of the tunnels that branched off the cave system to build a wall. Since claiming the local bat system, she found that she was having difficulty expanding in that direction. It wasn’t like when she had capped it her space and had to level up, but more like something was interfering.

She had sent a few of her bats and bugs down to scout out the source of interference, but none had returned in days. She presumed them to be dead.

Whatever lie down that path, she wasn’t in any rush to meet it without proper monsters to protect her. So, she had them block it off.

On the bright side however, in addition to the copper and tin found in the mines, she had found some low-quality quartz crystal deposits and some sodium. Tacked onto the silver pattern she’d learned when she deconstructed the chain from her first room, Cara was coming up with some nice incentives.

With nothing left to do besides wait for her first clutch of dungeon bats and claim more of her new cave system, Cara kicked her metaphorical feet back and started designing some traps.