System was still disabled, probably it was still analyzing this dimension and stirring mana innit. I was familiar with operating without the system so this wasn’t a big deal. It will just scan my memories to give me my messages or will translate my gains and imprint some base knowledge to allow me to properly use it.

Anywho I started digging under the current network of mana siphon trees or managroves as I dubbed them. I dug for 2 reasons, first to see what’s there and second to expand my biomass and mana storage.

I could already imagine an entire city underground. If my previous worlds were any indication then most of the magical civilizations depend a lot on magic sometimes completely disregarding tech. That happened in the world of The Eternal Storm. Even with frequent showers of technologically advanced scrap, everyone used magic as it was easier and cheaper than tech.

My first attempt ended in failure. I dug about 100 meters straight down and found nothing. My next attempt was just widening the central shaft, the dirt and rocks were analyzed to see if they had anything noteworthy inside them.

The answer was no, just a standard mix of silica, carbon and other metallic elements. For now I was simply dumping all of that rock outside of my house. While having guests would be an amazing opportunity to study them, I wasn’t strong enough yet to fight anyone.

My main weakness was lack of information and shitty mana density. I can artificially raise it or decrease it but doing so will only strengthen or weaken me as well as my opponent. I spent 2 days digging, I now had enough space to fit one of those super stores from America. It wasn’t an empty space, there were fillars all over the space to support the network above.

It was time to create a new plant and extend the network downwards. I first used up all the saved up biomass to cover the outer walls and floor of the new cavern. Any extra was used to thicken the supports expanding over the ceiling.

The managroves directly above the empty space were remade to only do the preprocessing stuff above and move their bulk of operations underground ideally on one of the nearby walls. This greatly lessened the amount of weight supported and allowed me to demolish most of the pillars. Where before stood a forest of stone pillars now stood only 3 right in the middle of the room.

I wasn’t an architect so the plants actually kept the ceiling one thing instead of a bunch of small chunks of dirt. Over the next few days the walls thickened and became more sturdy. The feedback from the network was crucial in modifying and guiding the growth of the underground base. Right now in the center of the cavern was a deep hole right in between the pillars I kept for redundancy.

The walls of the hole were covered in a solid wall of plants shaped to look like and function like runes. The hole wasn’t simple, it was a pool for liquid mana. After days of stockpiling mana I decided that it would be better to just use it. This is the result, the pool will allow me to make more complex life forms while artificially raising the mana density which would then be instantly siphoned off back into the pool.

This process would then strengthen the trees allowing for more efficient siphoning and transportation. I was now testing if this construct would work, if so then I could just put my real body in the pool. Doing so I believe would allow me to establish a dungeon, this would literally make me claim the space around me as my body which would drastically lessen the cost of modifying and creating life.

The mana was entering the hole but it was momentarily sucked to a nearby root and put out from the same place. Great another problem, thankfully it isn’t a major one. I probably only have to increase the amount of mana being transported through the network to here and if that doesn’t help I’ll just increase the density of that mana.

If even that fails I could attempt at making a mix between a spirit and elemental that would make mana coming out of the output a liquid and if the pool is full then it would just increase the density of mana.

So I did just that, for 5 days I was collecting mana while letting some of it circulate around the network mainly to train the plants in transporting it. And then after 5 days of waiting I dumped all of that mana at the same time and instantly overpressured the roots that were supposed to carry it.

Using my network and my abilities I managed to modify it to handle such an amount before breaking down. It was a minor upgrade as I was moving a constant torrent of mana that had the pressure of a tap fountain. Which was a lot considering the environment.

The result was a semi success. The liquid mana did form but it didn’t give off a lot of mana back to the environment, it was just staying there. It wasn’t a big problem as I could just make a plant that does that. But now I had different plans, I used some seeds from managroves to create a small lily pad that would float on top of the liquid mana and use it along with complex chemical transformations to separate elements from dirt.

I didn’t limit the size of the plant, just like any other flora it could grow to the fucking moon if the conditions were right. The only thing I limited was the amount of dirt it could process, and the speed of that process. I wanted to slow it down so shoving dirt in that plant wouldn’t become a chore.