《Buried City》Chapter 36
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Subcore
A core that retains its domains and mana type but is under your control.
Subcores may be given control to minions.
Uh…I accept?
Subcore has gained a ‘Bone’ Domain.
You have gained {Move Room} Skill.
I was expecting something bombastic, like a maelstrom of mana. Nothing like that happens, I just suddenly feel a connection to the core and gain its memories, among other things. I concentrate and feel the {Move Room} Skill, I can feel it, and its abilities quite well. Using it I can move rooms around, here’s the thing though, I could move them through stone, but it would be much much easier to move then along already open passages.
I move the spherical core room a bit, I see the entire thing shift forwards, coming closer to my core room.
I stop. It is… a bit of a headache moving it, I can feel it moving, it’s not a simple process, I can actually somehow feel that this skill is fucking around with space itself. I am going to take a look at it later.
I take a look at the dungeon memories and see that this dungeon has four minions, now five counting skeletons. First it has the fleshlings, and then the nervlings, with the fulminating one, lastly things called ‘Bloody puddy’ and now the skeletons. Which is interesting, before it did not have the ability to create bones, but its minions still had some bones, but I already know the answer to this riddle.
I create a voice box in the ground and tell Merlin to go to the weird black machines at the end of the room. I quickly take a look around the room and notice something. The whole room has your normal rocky surface, it has the telltale signs of the dungeon absorbing the rock too, but still, normal rock caves. The back of the room however, the one with the black apparatus, has that bricky texture, the same one that the skulldwarves room had. It even has the weird fused stone at the edges.
Coming closer we can see some small discarded pieces of bone on the ground. Most seem to be small pieces like finger bones or individual vertebrae, the black machines are all made of sharp angles, mostly squares or rectangles. There are ten objects, five are rectangles, each with shining letters on their surface, the others are lengthy rectangles.
As Merlin approaches, the bright letters on the surface of the object lift up into the air and stay there as holograms, right in front of him.
“Cranium? Humerus? These are bone names.” Surprisingly Merlin reaches out to the shining letters. The letters expand, becoming a large rectangular wall of text all around him. He looks around taking in all the names.
“Merlin, think of a specific bone.” I tell him. Merlin looks around to the discarded bone pieces.
“Thoracic vertebrae.” The letters shift, becoming a single column, each name one of the individual vertebrae.
“Th 7.” Merlin says again and the specific vertebrae lights up. I didn’t even need to tell him to try that.
“Skeleton.” Again the wall of text appears, I already suspected this from my skeletons, but it does seem humans have the same bone structure compared to the ones from my dimension, no extra bones or anything.
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“Tell it to change the way the text is displayed, group the bones and separate the text.”
Merlin nods, the text changes. Now all the bones are grouped together, so you have a paragraph of text with the head bones, including the teeth, under it are the bones of the thorax, to the sides the arm bones, etc. The text makes a rough human shape of paragraphs.
“Try to visualize it, ask to show what the bones actually look like.”
"Visualize." The text changes, and becomes an actual 3d image of a human skeleton.
“Name.” Lines come out of the bones and label the pieces of bone, just like a school diagram.
“See if there are organs.“ I say, noticing that the rectangle, terminal, didn't react to my voice. Which makes sense, something as sophisticated as this should be able to understand who’s actually using it and who’s not.
“Organs.” The 3d figure gains a complete set of organs.
“Tell it to ‘Create’.” Merlin nods.
“Create.“ One of the rectangles lights up.
I feel a large amount of mana being sucked into it… Actually that’s really not that much mana, it’s just that this dungeon has a lot less than me. The body surges out, literally, it comes out in the middle of the rectangle like a wave of organs and bone and takes the shape of a humanoid. As soon as the process sets in, I send my mana into it, creating flesh and blood around the body and transforming it into a minion.
It’s quite a bit more difficult than I expected. I understand now why the monsters of this dungeon were all weird blobs. When I create a zombie or skeleton there is a ‘mold’ so to speak, it’s quite easy to just follow it and end up with a humanoid body. The fleshlings and nerveling are a lot more free form.
The end result is a bit macabre. A large bald humanoid with pink flesh, fulminating nerve scars running all over the body, creating sparks of lightning. I quickly continue and create bone armor around them. I plan on giving them {Mutable Exoskeleton} when they get to Level 10. I also notice something else.
Fulminating Amalgam Level 1
They have only a single class. I want to create more, but the mana of the dungeon is running low, also the being is made of life mana. I do not need to try to know that my necrotic mana will not be compatible with this dungeon.
Although… With the HF mithril I could create some better purifying arrays. I do have more mana for one thing too. It’s quite an interesting thing too. I concentrate and create a ‘Blood Gem’ , an item from this dungeon.
A single cloudy Red gem appears, I send a bit of mana into it, just a tiny bit, and blood droplets seep out of the gem.
“Merlin say ’Features’ for me.” Merlin nods and does so. A large, much much larger than before, wall of text appears. I quickly skim through it. It’s a user agreement coupled with a features list and manual. It’s… quite interesting actually.
“Merlin, try to create a non-humanoid skeleton.“ Merlin nods, he looks at Asterion.
“Bull Skeleton.” A line of text appears, basically saying Merlin does not have access to this feature. Right, the manual said that this machine can create pretty much any type of form of ‘standard’ bone and in quite large sizes too, but most of those features are locked in this particular machine.
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“Ask to create skin, hair and nails. Also a male and female body.” Merlin does so. “Hmmm? Can humans look like this too?” He asks.
“Well, not normally, no.” I say, looking over at the humans, their face features are quite squarish and their skin is colored a grayish white, their hair and nails the same color. This is ‘milk white stone’ , basically a type of synthetic skin, neither of the bodies has any genitalia, not even nipples.
The manual again states that this machine can create a variety of human skin, faces and genitalia, but this machine is blocked from doing so, and trying to unblock it is against the law, it actually names the specific law. I can understand that, hah. It actually reminds me of a few ‘Using magic responsibly’ classes I had… and a few other classes, much less funnier and quite frightening in a few cases.
Looking over at the whole thing, I think this machine was used for… medical and study purposes? Study as in ‘teaching classes’.
“Merlin, grab the blood gem and stand next to the machine.” I wait for Merlin to do so, taking mental deep breaths. When he grabs the gem and stands next to the machine I concentrate fully and use {Move Room}.
But this time, I am not using it on the entire room, just on the area around Merlin and the Machine, the Body Maker. I feel a slight resistance, and then it breaks.
The area around Merlin moves forward. It shoots past the corridor of the flesh dungeon and into my domain, Merlin grabs the Body maker. The ‘room’ arrives at my Core room, and abruptly stops, Merlin lurches forwards a bit, at the speed that the whole thing was moving he should’ve been catapulted off the Body maker, but again, this skill really is fucking around with space itself.
It created a ‘bubble’ around Merlin, anchoring him to the ‘Room’ so that he wouldn’t be flung out of it while it was moving. I feel a headache coming… This skill is quite impressive though, I really have to take a closer look at it later.
First let’s solve the problems I can. I tell a few Crystal slimes to go to the Flesh core. Then I tell some of the miners to get the HF mithril and put some right at the entrance, on the Flesh side and on my side, I can literally feel the different manas of the dungeons, where my necrotic mana ends and the vitality life of the Flesh dungeon starts, or should it be Sub Dungeon now?
Ah, whatever. I tell Merlin to activate the Body maker. Again I feel the pull of mana, this time it’s my necrotic mana though and I can feel the process much better, and also guide it, together with the machine. This time the body has skin, I also use the Spooky Blue Eyes, one of the items gained from the jack brothers, giving the body a bright blue stare.
The process is soon complete, and a human with pale grayish skin and blue gem eyeds stands. Purple flashes light up underneath their skin, necrotic lightning sparks coming from their nerves.
Fulminating Undead Amalgam Level 1
One class again huh… I notice that my miners have done what I asked. I start to manipulate the HF mithril, creating a large ‘cleansing’ array, a special array that will purify the necrotic mana, this way I can pump some of my mana into the subcore. The HF mithril makes this process much faster. Though I do have to take special care about it though, the mithril right now is breaking the necrotic mana down making it easier for the array to transform it into pure mana, but if I fuck the array up it can also just outright destroy the mana.
Soon enough it’s complete, I could probably make it better later, with a few blood gems and
the Crystal slimes.
Later though. Right now… There is something more important. I take a look at a room, a room basked in purple light, a single skeleton mage standing solemn vigil over it.
The egg room. I can actually feel the insides of the eggs, and I can tell they are very close to hatching. The chicks inside are… a bit weird, but that’s expected.
One of the eggs moves a bit, so I pay closer attention to it. The chick starts to peck the egg, one peck, two pecks, three pecks… The egg does not break or even crack.
The chick stops.
Then I feel mana moving around, the chick lights up, literally you can see the egg start to shine. A fourth peck, this time the egg breaks and a single chick head comes out.
That’s… certainly a chicks skull. The little bird looks like a chick, though one with crow black colors, the head however, has a blue purple gelatinous substance instead of flesh along with two pitch black eyes, the chick skull is a normal skull though.
The chick gets up and… seems to preens up? Their gelatinous head lights up and pale blue flames flare out of it.
“PEEP!”
The other eggs start to move too.
“PEEP!”
All the eggs flare in shades of blue light and then they break and the chicks move out, congregating around the first one all chirping. Did they imprint on the first?
Ghost Fire Chick Level 1
Squire Level 1
Huh, they have Squire class but not Cultist?
The chicks stop chirping, all of them are looking at the first, then the first looks directly to the mage skeleton.
The dozen or so chicks, all of them, start chirping again and move towards the skeleton mage, who backs off.
Then they keep following the poor mage. I tell him to move in circles. The chicks run in circles after him.
I create a voice box near him.
“You…” The mage stops moving. “You are now Gallus. Take care of them, nurture them. You understand?” The mage nods his head. I leave him to it.
I take a look around the dungeon. Seeing the new things I gained. Today was a good day.
It’s quite funny actually, today little undead chicks are born, tomorrow… tomorrow lizards die.
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