Valens yawned widely, he didn’t even need to sleep but being so low on mana made him groggy. It had taken him quite a bit longer to put up all of the sunstones that he needed, and it had taken most of his mana, at least he had been able to finish in one go. The plants seemed to rather like the pseudo-sunlight as well, they were growing at a slight but noticeable faster pace than before. That made a lot of sense to Valens, normal plants usually used sunlight and water to grow, and while they could live just off the mana in the dungeon, it was probably better for them to get something similar to sunlight.

The core imagined that having something to simulate rain would be a big help as well, he should ask Magnus about it at some point. The drake was currently combining very odd-looking balls of mana, what was weird about it to Valens was that he couldn't really tell the difference between the mana spheres and the ambient mana. Visually the spheres distorted the air around them but other than that he couldn’t even tell where they were with any certainty. Come to think of it he could sense any mana leaving the sunstones, ambient mana was absorbed, and light came out. He was sure that there was probably some kind of magic leaving the sunstones as well but he couldn’t sense it at all. That was a little frustrating, for most basic elemental magics he could at least sense the magic as a change or disturbance of neutral mana but not this time.

Magnus’ mana folded in on themselves and gave a dispirited sigh. Well, that didn’t work.

What were you trying to do? Also, why couldn’t I sense any of the magic you were using.

The drake scratched his head and looked thoughtful before answering. I was trying to combine higher elements to see what happens, space and time. But it didn’t work as you probably noticed, I’m not great at manipulating higher elements yet so it might be that I'm just not skilled enough yet or it could be that those two elements just don’t combine. Maybe you couldn’t see what I was doing because they're higher elements? They’re usually a lot more difficult to sense for normal mages, and you did mention you're still having trouble sensing normal elemental mana so it would make sense if you're having trouble perceiving the more esoteric types of mana.

Valens was a little annoyed, time and space magic sounded interesting. Well, that's frustrating. I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see if I can sense those elements as I get stronger. By the way, what kind of spell can you cast with space and time magic? Could you undo aging with time magic?

Magnus gave a small chuckle and shook his head. Time magic doesn’t work like that, at least not normal. I can theoretically cast spells to slow or speed up people and things by affecting the stream of time around them temporarily. Space magic can be used to fold space and make temporary pocket dimensions among other things. True masters of space magic can also connect two places with portals making travel instantaneous. I’m still not very good at using either element though, I can manage slight changes to the speed of time right now and a minor pocket dimension but that’s about it.

What about reversing aging? Valens prompted the drake, genuinely curious about whether or not it was possible.

It is technically possible, but you would need a mage specialized in time magic to do it, which is rather rare. Also when you de-age someone they would lose all of the memories, as well as levels they had gained during the time you are taking away. They would essentially revert to a younger version of themselves, which in my opinion is not worth it. You're giving up who you are to live a bit longer. It basically wouldn't be your current self that lived on after that point.

I thought you would have done whatever was necessary to stay alive.

The drake snorted his gaze a little dark. There are still some methods that proved unpalatable for me to even consider, I do have standards you know. De-aging myself is one of those methods I would never try, doing so would mean giving up who I have become. All that I have learned, struggled for, and achieved would have been made worthless, so I didn’t even try pursuing that method to cheat death.

So there are other ways to live forever? What are some of the others that you decided against?

Magnus smiled weakly. There are a few, for example, I had no interest in trying to become a lich or vampire, and as I said before I didn’t want to reverse my aging with time magic. Those are about it as far as I know for ways to live forever besides becoming an immortal or bonding to a dungeon.

They lapsed into silence both pondering the strange road that had led the two of them together. Valens was the first to break the silence. So about the higher elements, I’m curious, why can’t I sense them at all? With normal elemental magic, I can at least pick up hints that something is there at least. Shouldn’t I be able to sense the portion of magic that is still made of neutral mana?

Magnus tapped his chin thoughtfully, humming to himself slightly. There’s a reason that they’re called higher elements, they’re a lot different from normal elemental magic. They represent more powerful forces, and the neutral mana associated with them is changed a lot more drastically than the neutral mana in normal elemental magic. I think that’s probably why you can’t sense it all, but I’m not positive, again dungeons and your auras makes everything a little weird as far as mana goes.

Valens shrugged, he would just need to get stronger. It was getting a little old that all of the interesting magics were locked behind that requirement. By the way, just to confirm I do use mana right? Not chi or chakra.

That’s right, mana is the raw energy of the world that creates external phenomena, while chi and chakra focus on more internal changes. It's a little more complicated than that, and I have no idea what kind of energy your aura falls under. Auras are what let dungeons do all the crazy things your kind is known for, like creating monsters out of thin air, it might even be made of an entirely unique type of energy that only dungeons have access to.

Now that you mention it, I don’t interact with mana directly. I usually use my aura to manipulate it.

Magnus tapped his chin looking thoughtful. Now that is interesting, the normal energies don’t interact with each other very well, maybe your aura is a specialized type of energy that lets you be very precise when using mana? I’m not sure but it's interesting.

Alright, thanks, Magnus. The drake settled back down on the floor of the core room, grumbling to himself about needing a proper bed. The core ignored him, if Magnus wanted something he could ask instead of whining about it, also he wasn’t sure if he could make an actual bed. He had all the pieces he would need like wood and feathers, maybe he could give Magnus those and see what the drake could figure out.

Moving back to the sixteenth floor Valens began gradually expanding, absorbing stone as his aura grew larger and larger. His floors were rather ridiculously large now and he was frankly impressed at how quickly that first group had made it through his floors. Sure it took like three days or something, but still. His tier two floors were massive, a little under ten square miles which was more than triple the size of the tier one floors. When the human returned Valens was sure that they would spend weeks just trying to travel throughout his lower floors. He was actually looking forward to it a little, besides being a great way to get experience the humans had seemed rather entertaining the last time they were in the dungeon.

Valens paused, something seemed off, he checked around the floor, nothing seemed wrong. There was a smattering of plants that were slowly getting used to the cold, pure white grass and some pine trees. There weren’t any monsters yet as he had wanted to give the plants a chance to get situated before trying to adapt any animals. The temperature was still well below freezing throughout the entire floor, the arrays were doing a good job with that. It was a bit strange, compared to Magnus’ memories at least, to have a cold environment without snow. The core shrugged, maybe he would figure out how to make rain eventually, or ask Magnus about it, in the meantime the white grass would give things the proper feel. The frozen streams and ponds he was planning would help too.

Wait a minute, the entire floor was below freezing which is what he wanted but Magnus hadn’t had a chance to expand his arrays. There should be enough arrays to keep the entire floor at the temperature it was. Valens carefully inspected the arrays, they were working just like before putting out cold air and slightly changed neutral mana, which he assumed meant they were releasing ice mana as well.

The core took a closer look at his aura covering the floor and received the shock of his life. Most of the time his aura was composed of neutral mana connected to whatever else made up his aura, but right now the neutral mana was just slightly altered. Checking just to be sure, the core nodded to himself, it looked just like mana the arrays were putting out. Did that mean he had ice mana in his aura?

Hey Magnus can you do me a quick favor and shut down the arrays on the sixteenth floor? I want to check something.

Magnus looked a little curious but complied, walking out of the core room to shut down his arrays. Valens watched carefully as the runes shut down and stopped cooling the floor, and nothing changed. The temperature was still freezing, even without the arrays to keep it that way.

Magnus apparently noticed this as well. Valens what’s going on the floor isn’t changing at all.

Valens made a quick explanation of what he had observed in his aura, it was even more obvious now without the mana from the arrays distracting him. His aura on the entire floor had shifted to produce what he assumed was ice mana. The core didn’t mind the change, it was downright helpful for this floor as he wouldn’t need Magnus to cover the entire thing in arrays but he didn’t know how or why this had happened.

Do you have any idea why this happened, Magnus? Because I’m at a bit of a loss.

Humm, it reminds me of the chambers mages make to train in different elements. Concentrate enough of one element in a small enclosed space and it starts to become saturated with that element. That seems like what’s happened here except the effect isn’t fading at all, it’s got to be because of the change you mentioned in your aura. Quick question though, can you change the floor back to neutral if you tried?

Valens concentrated he still couldn’t sense the elemental mana in his aura but the neutral mana was still there just altered slightly. He focused on the change and tried to will the mana back into its base state. Surprisingly it was rather easy, the mana snapping back into its normal form and the icy, overwhelming cold began to fade from the floor.

Taking hold of his mana again, Valens tried to shift it back into the altered state. The neutral mana shifted slightly and then snapped back to neutral, the core growled in frustration. It looked like shifting the element of his aura manually was a no-go, for now at least. Maybe if he could properly sense elemental mana he would be able to pull it off.

It appears that I can shift my aura back to neutral, but not back to the elemental version. Try turning the arrays back on.

Alright, pay attention, see if you can tell when your aura shifts back over to being ice attuned. The arrays powered back on and began spewing out ice mana. It only took about ten minutes for the change to happen, one minute the core’s aura was normal and the next it was ice attuned. Valens scratched his nonexistent head in puzzlement, it appeared to have happened faster this time, probably because the floor was already so cold, but he still couldn’t figure out how to alter his aura manually. Valens shrugged, he would figure it out some other time, it seems like using arrays to indirectly shift his aura was a bit of a cheat, and he was going to have all kinds of fun messing with the concept. For now, though it seemed like the sixteenth floor was ready for an actual population, time to make some monsters.