The first task at hand would be to find a way to increase its Mana which was resting at two points, and wouldn't be enough to claim its entire room.

Scanning the surroundings for anything that could help in this endeavor, its gaze landed upon the red things protruding from the ground. An inspection of these odd spikes that littered the room gave the Core no clues as to what they were, only that their tips seemed incredibly sharp.

Unable to learn anything more from looking at them, it used appraisal on these unusual objects.

Blood-Roots

Named after their blood red coloring, spear-like tips, and surprising toughness. Blood-Roots have been the end of many individuals tripping and impaling themselves onto their sharp tips.

Blood-Roots gain their impressive constitution by infusing Mana across their entire stem. Being so saturated with Mana leads them to be valued immensely by various races across the world.

Rating: Greater Uncommon.

Seeing the description of blood-roots made it very excited, and intrigued as to how blood-roots could emerge here where there is no Mana at all. This line of thought made it believe the lack of Mana might only be recent, making it even more curious as to where all the Mana could have possibly gone.

It was left with only one lingering question, if these blood-roots contained Mana why couldn't it see that with Mana Sense? Following this thought, it concentrated Mana sense onto the blood-root closest to its pedestal, looking for any sign of Mana within it. After keeping its sense locked upon the blood-root for a few minutes and seeing no sign of Mana, it began to doubt whether they actually contained any Mana.

Judging that assimilating it wouldn't do any harm, the Core tried doing so for the first time in its short life. It watched as the blood-root glowed, turning thinner more ethereal until it completely disappeared, leaving only tiny motes of grey light slowly dissipating into nothingness. A moment after the last points of grey light faded away a black box appeared, telling of its success and bringing news that made it content.

Assimilation complete! Assimilated blood-root contains elevated quantities of Mana which has been absorbed [+11 Mana points]. Blood-Roots may now be created at the cost of 233 Mana points per Blood-Root.

The cost of blood-roots, however, shocked it to its core. 233 Mana points!?! That's nearly nine times its Mana capacity for a single blood-root! The Core concluded that these plants were more than ordinary, especially considering their rating was above even that of the Storm Hide Bear. It determined to keep its use of these plants to a minimum, hoping to find more applications for them later.

With enough Mana to expand its influence, it immediately spread its Mana across the entire room using six points to claim the remaining quarter-meter radius it hadn't controlled within the room. Now having the whole room under its domain, it moved towards the gap, ready to see what lay beyond. Arriving at the gap, it used two more points of Mana to place the entrance to this new area under its control and took in every detail.

The new area was quite large, being approximately twenty times the size of its core room, and contained more blood-roots as well as some sort of black rock embedded within the lead-grey walls. A large pond, about twice the size of the core room, sat to the left of the entrance, and finally, a colossal golden orb was sitting within a hurricane of Mana at the center of the room. As the Core took in everything, the orb caught its attention the most, since it was drawing all the Mana in the surroundings to its location revealing that it was the reason the entire cave was left with no Mana.

Examining the anomaly more closely, it spotted the Storm Hide Bear sleeping at the base, bathing in the Mana rotating around it. The Core was curious as to what this orb could be, so it appraised it, hoping to find out why it was drawing all the Mana to itself.

Malfunctioning Titan Core

Titan cores, used to power the most powerful divine creations in existence, Titans.

Titans used unimaginable quantities of Mana just to operate; This Mana was provided by their Titan core by converting Ether into Mana, allowing Titans to draw on a near limitless supply.

This Titan core has malfunctioned, causing it to absorb Mana instead of converting Ether, which has led to its surroundings being devoid of Mana. Origin: Melkev Titan of Sundering. Rating: Exceptional Semi-Divine.

Gazing at the description, it longed to fix it, imagining itself using the Titan core's power to create nearly endless Mana. The Core sent one last glance towards the bear happily sleeping at the base of the orb, and returned to its room thinking of ways to eliminate the only thing between it and nearly limitless power.