When we arrived back at the village, it was still early in the afternoon. We were greeted by the soothing sounds of the lakeshore washing over the sandy beaches. The mana crystals shone bright overhead, and a familiar scent of Yaksha and lakewater filled the air. One that reminded me of the natural, clean smell of the mountains in my past life.

On our way home, Andrea and Ellie led the cart from the front, and Lily and I were left to enjoy the cart bounce up and down while it rolled along the dirt road. Two manaflies, tiny insects shaped like blue dragonflies with nine wings on their backs, flew past us. Here is what they were thinking:

‘Oh George!’

‘Oh Margaret <3!’ 

‘Yes, yes, yes! Oh you demon~’

‘I’m… I’m going to…’

“Aweh, isn’t that sweet? That manafly is giving the other one a piggyback ride~” Andrea commented happily, feeling the solid weight of 195 copper leaves in her pocket. Although it wasn’t that much, the fact that she had made so much money in a short amount of time was giving her a bubbleheaded feeling.

“Errr… y-yeah.” Ellie said. She was seriously contemplating quitting her job and going full time with this fizzy juice business. From their previous discussions, it seemed like Andrea would probably agree to partner up. Especially considering that both of them hated their jobs.

Ellie had glorified all of the stories of her SDF days to Bell, and the truth was much less exciting and much more arduous. For example, as a long range, area-of-effect debuffer, defeating that undead lich’s army meant that she had to stay in the back lines pouring every single drop of mana she had into maintaining her advanced class freezing spell. It was exhausting to say the least, and it didn’t help that the undead smelt like rotten berries fermenting in a vat of a manamoo’s steaming shit. It cleared the sinuses even better than Yaksha wasabi did.

Before Ellie could bring the topic of the new business again, Andrea beat her to the punch.

“El, I think we should try this again on a larger scale, and if the juice sells as well as it did today, we should actually get a patent ASAP.”

“Fufufu, An, I think we’re on the same page. Just imagine. We could try using different flavours and even sell bubbly wines.” Ellie noted. The two of them imagined the load of wealth that they might soon possess, and burst out in roaring laughter, as Lily and I exchanged a look that screamed ‘Oh boy!....’

Once we arrived, we began to say our goodbyes, with the plan to meet up for dinner and discuss the business in more detail. However, I had other plans.

‘Mom, can I take the cart to the market? I want to buy some different flavoured berries and test how they might taste as juice.’ I inquired innocently as possible.

“I’ll come with you, honey.” Ellie offered.

‘It’s okay mom, you deserve some rest. All I’ve been doing is sitting on the cart, so I’m not tired at all.’ I smiled.

“But—“

“Don’t worry about Bell, El. He’s growing up to be a strong, independent boy. The market’s just a few minutes down the road anyway, and the villagers all know him.” Andrea reassured her. I silently thanked her in my thoughts.

‘I’ll be back before you know it~’

“Sigh, okay. But be back soon, okay?” Ellie said, handing me 50 coppers.

‘I promise.’

I put the leaves in my pouch and gave mom a big hug before everyone went their separate ways.

And so, under the premise of buying more berries for the business, I physically wheeled the slime-cart over to the market and bought 100 bunches of the clear, tasteless variant of Yaksha. I didn't want any sort of taste induced tingle in my nucleus if I could help it. Unnecessary senses would only hamper my efforts. With the added discount, it costed exactly 90 coppers, which left me 10 from the juice sales and 50 from Ellie.

With these, I bought a variety of different berries to taste-test and bring home. These included a yellow variant that supposedly had a banana-like texture and sweetness, a black-spotted white version that was supposed to be a hard, taffy like berry, and an ominous looking red type that was a new find from the upper dungeon floors, apparently. I didn’t really want to try it, but I affirmed that my sacrifice would be for the greater good of the business.

The main issue now, was wheeling the cart to the secret base Lily and I had found at the edge of the village. We had come across it while exploring the lakeshore a few weeks back with Andrea. As a small enclosed space atop a beautiful tree entwined with a strange, green Yaksha plant on every branch, it was the best place to conduct my experiment. A quiet, peaceful area where there would be no sudden sounds to distract me in my meditation. The Yaksha that covered it was a strange, mutated variety that apparently masked its presence from adults; or at least that’s what Lily and I discovered after Andrea lost her mind thinking that we had disappeared somewhere. It also didn’t produce any berries, to my dismay.

Anyway, the reason why wheeling the cart was an issue was because I had underestimated the weight of 150 bunches of berries. Not having any mana myself, I had to physically pull the cart rather than guide its movement magically.

Pushing my strength to its limits, it took almost a full 15 minutes to pull it 300 meters off-road, but I eventually made it to the base, sweating and body heaving. One by one, I threw the bagged berries into the open entryway. I left the flavored ones on the cart, though, since I would have to drag them back home anyway. I then went up myself, using the branches as step ladders, bouncing from one to the other.

I climbed into our secret base, welcomed by the dim, green glow of the surrounding Yaksha vines and leaves. Like Lily and I had originally found it, the inside floor of the tree was a flat area made of intricately interwoven branches. The walls arched upwards like a dome, and met in the center where a single leaf grew brighter than the rest. The base was almost too perfect, but I didn’t really think about it too much. If it was artificial, whoever had made it left long ago. There were manaspiders that Lily and I had to clear out before we could actually use it comfortably.

I collected the berries splayed around the base, and piled them into a corner, contemplating the task in front of me. I never had any issues getting ‘full’, nor did I ever really get the sense that anyone in the Kingdom had thought about eating too much. For slimes, eating was mainly a way to acquire nutrients, and there was no real reason to overeat. Even if they did, 100 bunches in one go was definitely unprecedented.

I took a deep breath. It was time.

Huuuuuu…

…

Haaaa... NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM.

Pushing my disgestive skills to their limits, I ate and ate, even going as far to expel the excess liquids that were stored in the berries. My focus was not to absorb the ingredients or completely assimilate the nutrients. I entered full meditation mode, trying to sense the mysterious thing that was ‘mana’.

20% in, I began to feel a little more energetic than before. But I wasn’t sure whether it was because of the overwhelming amount of nutrients in my body, or whether it was mana. I kept going.

50% in, I could definitely sense that my body’s energy levels were approaching a maximum. Every region in my body was alight and rejuvenated. However, something else was pushing my body to be stronger… something that wasn’t…. I couldn’t put my finger on it. This definitely went beyond what was possible with mere satiety. No, there had to be something that was causing it.

Was it ATP? Was it chemical in nature at all? I pushed these thoughts to the back of my mind and continued to eat like a zombie, ignoring my protesting body.

About 85% through the haul, I began to feel something… different. It wasn’t energy, or at least what I understood to be energy. It wasn’t joy. It was pure and utter pain. What was causing this pain, I didn’t know, but it felt like my nucleus was on fire, eating away at my very soul. I tried to quench this pain by creating a physical barrier between my body and my nucleus, but something seemed to be free floating between the two without regards to the membrane. No matter how many membranes I formed between the two, nothing was effective. I couldn’t understand it. Did I make a huge mistake?

I began to see lights as if I was entering heaven’s gates, but instead of growing brighter and brighter, streams of it seemed to be churning around. Looking closer, the lights were actually streams and whirlpools of tiny specks of brilliant white, swirling around my body.

I understood instantly that this was mana. I could feel it inside me, although it would be hard to describe through the pain I was currently experiencing. It felt alive. With its own thoughts and behaviours, the little twisters of mana particles seemed to attack my body as if… as if it was trying to escape.

Was it because it wasn’t my own mana? Is that what it was? I started to get increasingly angry at the little fucking specks that were causing me such agony. I fought through the pain with feelings of rage and stubbornness, and willed the mana into submission.

‘…DOWN. CALM. THE FUCK. DOWN.’

Almost immediately, the specks burst with brilliant light, and their churning became a torrent of chaos, as a multilayered, eerie voice pierced through into my thoughts. It seemed like the amalgamation of millions of different voices speaking at the same time, ranging from the highest to the lowest of pitches.

‘This fool. He dares speak to Us that way. How cheeky. Let's show this brat what death truly feels like…’

Oh, fuck.

‘Please, don’t!’ I begged, half because I didn’t want to feel any more pain and half because I didn’t want to die.

The particles stopped moving abruptly, as though it was shocked at my response. I breathed a sigh of relief as the pain was extinguished as fast as it had come.

‘Boy. You can hear us?’ The chorus of nightmares questioned.

‘…Yes, is that strange?’ I inquired cautiously.

‘Indeed. The only ones who should be able to hear us are the residents of the Dungeon.’

‘…Aren’t I a resident of the dungeon? And… who are you, if you don’t mind me asking?’

A pause followed my question, but the particles started to slowly swim around my body, poking and prodding at the various areas of slime, finally discovering the core at the center of my body. It gently snaked its way around my atom-shaped nucleus as if it was trying to understand what it was. Or at least that’s what I hoped it was doing, and not attempting to grope or destroy it. Either way, I had no way to stop it.

‘We are the hive.’ The chorus answered. ‘The collective mind of the original inhabitants of this Dungeon. You are not a resident. You are an outsider, as are all of you. Slimes, Mimics, Goblins, Vampires… Feeding off of my body as if it was entitled to you. Then again, you are but minor pittances compared to them…’

The chorus trailed off, as if it were in thought. I had so many questions for this strange entity, but I was afraid that if I overstepped my boundaries that it wouldn’t hesitate to subject me to hell again.

‘What were you meaning to do, anyway? How did you gather so much of my power inside of your body?’ The chorus inquired.

I hesitated for a bit, thinking that he might not believe me. After all, was 85 bunches of berries really that substantial in terms of mana? But I decided that the full truth would be better than lying, or hiding anything.

‘I was trying to learn how to sense mana by eating a bunch of these berries,’ I said, motioning to the half eaten bunch of berries that were in front of me. ‘I guessed that if I ate enough in a short enough span of time, I would have no choice but to perceive it. I thought that if I could perceive it, then growing a mana core would be only a matter of time.’

The particles in me began to vibrate slightly as the voice rumbled. Was it… laughing?

‘I see that you hesitate at this impossible explanation. I can understand why. I wouldn’t have believed it in other circumstances, but you seem to be unaware of the location you are in, nor what kind of berries you have been eating. This is a Dungeon sanctuary, one of the twelve locations where the concentration of mana is highest, and—‘

The specks of mana formed an arrow pointing at the berries in front of me.

‘Those are a mutated variant of Yaksha that I have developed myself to store my excess energy for future use. They are like mana sponges. I am surprised you didn’t know, but then again, there is much that your race does not….’

A pause followed.

‘You are interesting, child. Perhaps you will become someone worth observing. Not that it…. Before we depart, I will leave you with two things.

‘First, I will grant you a mana core. This is the only way to prevent you from dying, for once my consciousness leaves, the excess mana will run havoc and destroy you, since you do not know how to control it. The core will protect you.

‘Second, a word of advice. Once you wake up, do not exit this area for one day. Otherwise, you may die.’

I was still confused, and I wanted to ask so many questions. But one thing stood out from what the entity had said.

‘Wake up?’

Suddenly, the particles inside attacked my body once more, sending me reeling in waves of pain. But before I could try to resist, all of the strength in my body was sapped away, and concentrated at my core. I began to lose focus as I felt my nucleus radiate briefly with warmth, and then begin to pulsate slightly with red energy.

Helpless to the spasms of pain that wracked every inch of my body, I allowed the painless void to claim my miserable consciousness.