Author’s Corner: Okay! So, I have had no luck so far finding someone to help with the song(one guy offered, but never got back to me)… Sad author is sad. As such, I am using my last resort. Behold, Operation: Fundraiser! From now until the end of the arc, half of any donations made will be given to the person that creates the final song lyrics for the story's song. To make sure that there is at least something for the pool, adding in 1$ from myself. This way, there is guaranteed to be at least some prize.

This way, people who want to help but, like me, are incapable of writing good lyrics, can leave a small donation to be added to the pool. Meanwhile, people who are able to come up with the lyrics can earn a bit of a reward for contributing to the story! As I said before, send me a PM on the forums, and we can discuss the requirements of the song. I don’t want to post anything that could be considered as a spoiler here.

With that out of the way, enjoy the chapter!

Impressed with the results of the formation circles, I went back to the terminal and began reviewing the information that the scanners had gathered. Thankfully, Celeste had had a full week to get the spawn simulator program set up, while using the additional information gathered from the dungeons as a basis. However, this presented other problems.

First, and most importantly, it was impossible to tell how these simulations would interact with time mana, as we don’t have a precedent for it. For all we knew, using a small amount of time mana could turn something that had been small and passive into a large, aggressive monster.

The second problem, and only slightly less severe, was that the information seemed somewhat conflicting. There was one monster from the undead dungeon that had the exact same mana requirements as a goblin. The only thing I could come up with for that was that the environment could have an impact on what was spawned. And, from the notes Celeste had made in the program, she seemed to agree with that.

So, we were back to the good old, trial and error routine. But, that’s what we’re here for, after all! For this, let’s start small… the smallest and weakest monster that the scanners had recorded, aside from slimes, was a goblin. As such, I memorized the mana requirements for the goblin on the terminal, and went around, filling in the numbers in the formations. Then, in the time mana circle, I set it to gather ten time mana.

After setting the formations, and waiting for them to fill up, I waited for my mana to recover. Like my first time here, the time mana circle required a much higher mana cost to activate than any other, but now I also had a much higher pool of mana to pull from. As such, once my mana was fully recovered, I activated the formation, and watched as the mana gathered.

Slowly, the mana began condensing at the center of the circle, until it became visible. Small, stubby green legs slowly appeared above the center of the formation, followed by a short, fat body. Sure enough… what emerged was a simple goblin. Upon seeing me, the little monster flew into a rage and charged with its bare hands. Killing it was far easier than killing the ettins I was used to practicing on.

Next, I reset the formation, but this time increased the time mana to one hundred. Again, I went through the process. This time… another goblin appeared, but this one seemed old and wrinkled. Another failure… I sighed, killing the goblin as soon as it finished forming.

Once more, this time with two hundred time mana, and slightly reduced levels from the other formations to make up the difference. Since I was no longer working with the goblin ‘code’ as the base, I readied myself for anything.

Ready for anything, huh?

Ah crap… Seeing Malthan taking an interest, I pulled out my plasma pistol and took aim at the center of the circle. A small, golden body began forming. The legs seemed like little more than tiny spikes, while the body was large and circular, with a white front. In total, it was eight inches tall when fully complete, and was… a clock.

Clock-kun!

The clock chirped, but seemed to have no ability to interact with the world. So… I shot it.

Noooo, Clock-kun!

Well, at least I created something. Not exactly what I had in mind, but that should count for my quest, right? RIGHT?

Nope. Someone was already going to experiment with that in about six hundred years and make another Clock-kun. Try again!

Sigh… fine. Taking out another of my spikes, I shoved it into a wall so that it could overlook the formation. At least this way, we can slowly integrate time mana to Celeste’s program. Next, I moved it up a bit. I wanted a small reptile to use as the base. Thankfully, one of the dungeons had plenty of references for that.

Going around, resetting the formations, and using three hundred time mana this time, I got ready for my next set of results. This time, when the mana began gathering, there was a low hiss present, even before the body started to form. When the body did form, a pure white snake was sitting there on the ground. However, its skin rapidly became dry, cracking off and molting in seconds.

In under a minute, the snake had withered away into nothing. “This.. is not getting me anywhere fast.” I shook my head, calling Sharon on the comms. “Hey, Sharon, mind coming down to the lab? Figured I could use your help down here.”

“Hmm? Oh, sure. Stop that, Tessa. We don’t push that button. Sorry, yeah, I’ll be down in a minute. Let me just grab a babysitter.” Her voice came through from the other side of the call, obviously tired and thankful for a reason to escape her current situation.

Once Sharon came down, I explained to her what I wanted her help with. Basically, she is the only person aside from me that had any experience creating monsters from mana, thanks to her Summoning Magic. It could even be said that she should be more experienced than me in this regard.

Unfortunately… her answer was… “Sorry… I pretty much go by random until I get something that works. If I don’t like it, I’ll just dismiss it and start over.” It was a bit too much to hope that she would have some great insight into this, right?

“Well… you can stay to help anyways. Worst case scenario, you’ll be able to help me take down anything that starts running loose.” I smiled to her, pulling her in for a hug before I continued with my random experiments.

Taking her advice to heart, I began setting the numbers completely by random. Though, I would first input the numbers into the terminal, just to make sure it didn’t predict that I would make some kind of terrifying monster that would instantly eat my face. As long as that wasn’t the case, I would proceed with the experiment.

For the record, I learned that doing any less than two hundred of any mana type, including time, would make it so that the mana was ignored during the birth of the monster. I learned that after getting about ten results that had nothing whatsoever to do with time.

Eventually, though, I began making progress. Well… I call it progress, but I didn’t create anything new or unique. I did make several variations of monster clocks, though. Also rapidly aging monsters, but Malthan wouldn’t let me count those for the quest. In his words, ‘they already exist, you’re just killing them faster’.

My greatest result came after nearly two full days of trial and error. At first, I thought that this was going to be a failure, one of the cases where nothing would happen. However, that expectation came crashing down soon after.

By now, Sharon had gone back to the ship, and Yin was down here instead. They opted to switch out every now and then so that there would always be someone down here with me. So far for the day, she had seen me make lots of completely random creations, and then destroy them within seconds. There were even many times when the mana gathered, and then immediately dispersed. Those were the times when it seemed that the mana was not configured right to create any kind of monster

But this time… There was a strong gust of mana surrounding the formation, a bigger reaction than anything I had ever created. Thick hooves began forming along the ground, four of them. As streams of prismatic lights spiraled into the center, muscular legs seemed to be woven in place, with black fur sprouting from them.

Next came the body, tall and thick, with a slightly fat underbelly. The pull of mana slowly died down as the head came next, long and narrow, with two large antlers. Each one resembled a large jaw, and gave it a slightly intimidating look.

Wait… isn’t that just a moose?! As I thought, looking at the creature again, it really seemed to be just a normal moose. But then, why did it have such a strong reaction?

While I was wondering that, the spawning process was completed, and the new moose reared back on its hind legs and let out a terrified noise. There was another brief pull of mana, but this time it was entirely time mana. Afterwards, the moose was simply no longer there. It had vanished as if it had never existed.

“Okay, now that HAS to count as a new monster, right?” I asked openly, albeit a shortly lived monster.

That’s right! You have created the Time Moose! And what a thing it is. Being the only one of its kind, its only option to reproduce is to find itself at various points in its timeline in order to copulate. Thankfully, this particular Time Moose is hermaphroditic, otherwise that would be an especially awkward first date. Shall I go ahead and register this as your final product, and have you known as the man that made a moose go fuck itself through all of time?

...I really didn’t need to know all of that. But now that I did… I really didn’t want this to be my final submission. If it was a normal moose that just vanished into time, then sure. But this… eww, just no. I will try again! I will make it better, faster, stronger, less gross than it was before! We have the technology!

“John, you okay?” Yin looked at me cautiously. “Look weird…”

“Ah… sorry. Got some unpleasant information just now. Anyways, looks like we are continuing the experiments.”

Yin nodded her head at my statement, and we once again started up the endless cycle of monster birth and death. Unfortunately, the next few days yielded no results for my quest. As such, I was more than happy to stop for a little while when Celeste finished integrating her skills with her soul. She did say that she had a surprise for me, and I was more than bored enough to go see what it was.

“Alright, Celeste, what’s up?” I asked the Deus Ex, sitting at the desk chair in her room while she reclined on her bed.

“Well… I hadn’t really wanted to use this method for a while yet, but I figured out a way to give myself the same cloning benefit that you guys enjoy. Actually, I’ve had the idea for a while, it’s just annoying to implement.”

I thought about it for a minute, and thought I understood. “You’re wanting me to make you organic?”

Celeste’s head shot up, and she looked panicked for some reason. “Huh, no. Nothing like that! I like my current body a lot, you know? I meant a way to give me the same advantage while staying as a Deus Ex. It’s annoying because it takes a bunch of upgrades to get it working right.”

“Anyways… I plan on making a grove for myself. No, I’m not becoming a druid. I’m still going the Huntsmen route for training, but this plan requires me to also have a grove. In my grove, I’m going to set up a factory, kind of like the small scale project I made when we were building the Seraglio. The main purpose of this factory will be to build spare robot bodies for me.

“With that out of the way, I can buy an upgrade for myself known as a Hive Soul. It works the same as your clone controllers, and lets me place a fragment of my soul inside of a robot that doesn’t have an AI. That way, I can just send my clone robot down to the planets, and leave my main body behind. And whenever one gets scrapped, I can pull a new spare from my factory. Of course, I can only move one body at a time, so it’s not like I’ll become my own army.”

Taking a deep breath, Celeste finished her explanation. “With this method, unless my main body gets destroyed, I shouldn’t have to go through this whole resetting process again. It’s really annoying to have to take a few days to do nothing but think about all of the skills I’ve learned and seen. And this way, I can also graft my intelligent items onto my soul, so that I won’t have to worry about losing them again. Sharon said I was a bit… erratic when I was telling her how to bring them back this time.” As she said that, Celeste awkwardly scratched her cheek.