Max_51
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Chapter 154
🕑 Added 2026-01-15 03:00:15 +0000 UTCAN: Finally! Back to writing. Also, I turn 28 tomorrow, so I feel old as shit again. Anyway, enjoy this fully edited chapter!
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The Creator, Atlantis, The Kalenic Sea
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I waited impatiently as Beatram Losat stood away from his staff, having firmly planted it in the sand within the first room of the first floor. It was only us here: Kata, the staff, and Beatram himself. A huge gesture of trust on his part, though I wondered why it was necessary.
"Alright, come on out, Polish," Mr Losat called. Confused, I was about to ask what he meant when the dungeon core atop his staff lit up incredibly brightly in terms of both light and my own mana senses. Like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, the ambient mana level in Polish's core soared. It went from about the level of a saturated manacore to equaling my own level, back just before I'd ejected Cadmus from our mutual core.
My first thought was, of course: "How the fuck has she not shattered?!" Beatram looked briefly confused, about to answer, when the light from Polish's core dimmed, revealing a glowing, translucent avatar.
"I suppose the first transformation did feel like I'd shatter at any moment," Polish said aloud, her voice decidedly feminine and her avatar reflecting that. Naked, of course, but lacking any sexual genetalia. "That answers one of the questions I had, actually."
I paused, processing her words—transformation, the exact phrase the manabeings used when they went from one tier to the next.
"So we are manabeings, then?" I asked, the question bursting from Kata's lips. I could tell she was just as fascinated as I was when we stepped forward to get a closer look at the avatar.
"Of course we are," Polish giggled, a sound like tinkling raindrops on crystal. "The humans do have something right about us. What they call "Baby dungeons" is our Sprite stage. Young, Spirit. Mature, Fairie, and anything above that is the equivalent of an Elemental."
"I thought spirits could only be empowered by their relative personifications to become elementals?" I asked, pacing around the avatar and planted staff. My dungeon senses were analysing this magic intently, and I had absolutely no idea how to replicate.
"That is because the different stages take exponentially more mana to reach," Polish explained, and I was quick to finish her thought.
"Meaning it's more economical for the personifications to empower their favoured underlings than wait potentially millennia for them to mature," I concluded, to a grin and nod.
"Just so."
"What stage are you, then?" I asked, unable to stop myself.
"I am at the Fairie stage," Polish boasted. "Thanks to Beatram, of course. I had just reached the Spirit stage when he delved my dungeon and conquered me. I was wroth, of course. Terrified of what fate he would force upon me. But he merely wanted a companion, to research dungeons and know everything he could about us. My fear faded quickly, and we have become close friends over the last century."
"I'm glad it turned out well for you," I said, my eyes flicking to the very man, standing serenely some twenty yards away. "If the crusaders have their way, I am to be shattered; a suicidal endeavour. They'd doom not just themselves, but this planet as well."
"You have that much mana that your death would destroy the planet?" Polish asked, tilting her head in confusion. "But you have not transformed even once, are you not at the level of a sprite?"
"The mana density of a sprite," I answered, knowingly. "After my brief brush with what I thought was death, I spent a not-insignificant amount of time growing my core. I believe I am... large enough to fill this room, now. Or dominate it, at least." This time, it was Polish and Beatram's turn to blink in shock before Polish shook her head despondently.
"While your method has worked, you have only made it harder on yourself," Polish revealed. "You will need orders of magnitude more mana to reach the requisite density in your core."
"I figured as much," I replied with a nonchalant shrug "Shouldn't take too long to get enough, though. Just have not to use any mana for a week or so." Again, Polish looked shocked. Her avatar looked up to the manastream flowing between and around the stalactites growing from the ceiling. "Oh, that's not my only source of mana," I preempted her. "I have a portion of a diverted ocean current, as well as the passive mana emanation from my floors. Even after all my monsters and enchantments take their share, I have a very healthy income."
"Passive emanation?" Beatram asked, stepping forward as his glasses gleamed in the light of my manastar. "What do you mean by that?"
I waved Kata's arm at the room around us. "I have discovered much in my experiments with mana, the biggest of which is that mana reflects reality, just as reality reflects the mana nearby. For example, a room full of water mana will be damp, even if there was no water there before the mana's introduction. A room filled with water, then drained of its mana, will passively regain its mana."
I paused, giving Beatram a chance to answer, as he vibrated in place with excitement.
"Yes, yes, that makes sense," he answered. "So you pull mana from that coastal floor my niece spoke of, and it regains it over time?"
"I don't have to do anything," I hinted, a cheeky smile crawling over Kata's scaled face. "Through the course of natural events, such as evaporation and the weather cycle, water evaporates from the surface of the ocean. It carries water mana, and eventually, that evaporated water becomes clouds. Or, it encounters, say, a manastream, and gets dragged along"
"Surely that isn't enough, though?" Polish joined in.
"But that was just one example," I revealed. "This is happening with everything. Every tree is filled with Life mana, and will eventually reach a saturation level where it'll bleed off mana, as will every blade of grass, and even the algae in the sea. Even if their individual output is tiny, with a large enough number, it adds up. Light mana is carried by light from the sun and warms everything it touches, inducing Fire mana in everything it touches. Air is the most abundant element, apart from Water, since it's everywhere. Earth is the exception; by its very nature, rock is unchanging except for external forces acting upon it."
"How large are your floors, that this is such a reliable source of mana?" Polish asked, blatant interest colouring her tone.
"Well, it was really only after making the Eleventh and Twelfth that I noticed it," I explained. "The Eleventh is roughly the size of... the Plasied Grand Duchy, if I remember my maps correctly. The Twelfth is about half the size of the entirety of Theona. Continental in scale."
"How..?" Beatram wondered aloud. Then his eyes flickered, and horror grew on his face. "Oh. That's what you meant. The collapse of a space that size... yes, that would indeed cause... such destruction."
"So all I need to do is pull in enough mana to saturate my core, and when the 'full' feeling becomes painful, I should...?" I trailed off, flicking Kata's eyes to Polish again. The Dungeon Core's translucent avatar nodded.
"You should condense it," Polish advised. "Force it together, to the middle of your core. Rest your soul within the centre of this mana, and once the mana has been sufficiently condensed, you will experience the transformation."
"Of course!" I exclaimed, Kata's palm meeting her forehead with the metallic slap of scales on scales. "I panicked and ejected the mana, made it orbit my core like a ring. Honestly, depelected as it is from all the preparations I've made over the last month, there's probably enough there that I could do this now."
"Oh Creator, may I be allowed to witness this event?" Beatram begged, falling to his knees on the black sand. "It will likely be the most spectacular sight I will ever see in my long life."
"For your part in all this, I will allow you to watch from a distance, Beatram," I answered after a moment of thought. He'd be guarded and overseen, but I saw no problem with him watching from the shore of the Twelfth's inland sea.
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In the Clouds, The Twelfth Floor, The Dungeon
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Atop a solid cloud, Cadmus settled against Wave and Taura, their gaze intently focused on the small island below. Mom had said they would be doing something interesting today and asked all three draconoids to observe the event, as well as keep an eye on the human on the shore—the only human who'd ever been allowed to travel so deep without a fight.
"What's Mom gonna do?" Cadmus asked Wave. The Wyvern hummed in thought before stretching out his claws and settling again.
"I have no idea," Wave answered, frankly. "All I know is that The Creator hasn't used any mana for His projects in the last day or so, and with the volcano adding to His mana sources, He has a lot of mana around His core. The most I've ever seen, really."
"It must be something that needs a lot of mana, then!" Cadmus insisted, looking down eagerly. They focused, and their vision magnified enough to see Mom's core at the centre of the courtyard. Watching the castle be slowly built around Mom was a little boring, but they remembered when it was barely a foot high. Each layer had been heavily infused with mana, hardening the bricks beyond any other material. Now it was twenty yards tall, and still the layers grew.
"I think it's starting," Taura commented, leaning her head forward to lay it next to Cadmus's diminutive form. Wave did the same on the other side, and Cadmus bathed in the warmth. Then the ring of mana around Mom started moving faster, and their attention refocused.
The manadisk shifted closer to Mom, speeding up as it did. Cadmus watched, confused, as the mana tightened further, then started sinking into the core, instead of flying off or doing anything interesting with it. Mom grew brighter and brighter, and the three manastreams that joined the accretion disk started pouring directly into Mom's core. A stream dominated by Air, Light and Life mana, brought in from the surface's atmosphere. A stream of Water, Ice and Darkness mana, brought in from the surface's oceans. A stream of Fire, Rock and Gravity mana, erupting from the volcano in the southeastern corner of the floor.
"Wait," Wave stated, eyes narrowed. "I've seen this. This is what it looks like when..."
There was a flash of light so bright that it cast everything on the Twelfth into sharp relief. There was either bright white light or pitch black shadow, and a clean line between them. Cadmus shut their eyes almost instantly, but even with their reflexes, it wasn't fast enough. They cried out in pain as they heard Taura and Wave do the same. When Cadmus felt the tingling feeling of their regeneration go to work behind their eyes, they knew the light had blinded them.
Slowly, Cadmus' vision came back, and they squinted heavily, minimising the light reaching through their second and third eyelids. The light was fading, and colour bled back into the floor. But Mom's core was changed. The teal gemstone was the same size, but the light coming from within...
"He really did it..." Wave breathed, head unmoving as his eyes drank in the sight.
"What did He do, love?" Taura asked, just as enthralled.
"What happened? What happened?!" Cadmus begged, desperate for answers.
"I think The Creator transformed," Wave whispered, like speaking any louder would ruin the moment. "Like a manabeing does."
Cadmus launched themself off the cloud, flying down to the courtyard, and landed directly before Mom.
"Are you okay, Mom?" Cadmus asked, shifting into their Dragonkin form and placing a clawed hand against the bottom of the core.
"Never better, Cadmus," Mom replied, though not in their head. Mom's voice reverberated in the air, almost booming. As Mom continued, though, the volume dampened to a more reasonable level. "Oh, if the Crusaders weren't screwed before, they definitely are now!"
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The Mustering Grounds, The Crusader Camp, Port Laviet.
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Haliet walked through the camp slowly, each step deliberate and purposeful. He was resplendent in his full set of armour, which he'd not worn all together since the ceremony that elevated him to Templar. Mana flowed through the mana-conductive metal, cycling through and constantly reinforcing protective and reflective wards. It also made the metal shimmer and shift in the sunlight. The dungeon core fixed upon the chestplate, long beaten into submission by generations of his family, remained silent, as it should. Such beings were tools to be used as humans desired.
The wards were strongest about the golden-hued core itself, of course. It was a mere gemstone, and thus prone to shattering, but its position, exposed to sunlight, was vital.
As he passed the men sent by hundreds of lords from across Theona, they straightened and saluted without a word. None needed prompting, nor reminders from their fellows. Good. Discipline would be vital in the weeks to come.
Haliet paused as he reached the large clearing in the sea of tents to observe the Heroes and the Templar training them.
Most were practising with their weapons, and Haliet approved. Fancy moves and attacks were all well and good, but often they were trumped by skilled foot-and-bladework. The most interesting happenings related to the mages, their magic flinging about, stopped only by wards set up to protect the rest of the camp.
Tower walls of fire clashed against pillars of ice. Under Pan's direction, a mousy woman in white robes cajoled a spout into a towering vine, which waved and swayed under her direction. Ranilla engaged two Heroes at once, both similarly armoured to Ranilla and to Haliet himself.
Haliet's observation was cut short as Artic approached him from the direction of the Ice and Fire heroes. "Well, Artic? What do you think of them now?"
"They have potential," the stoic woman admitted in a monotone. "But I still believe they lack conviction. They do not worship the Gods; they merely pay lip service to please us."
"And when they are truly tested, and the gods come to their aid, the lip service will blossom into true belief," Haliet answered frankly "For it is not in our most desperate moments that we feel the Gods' influence most keenly? I heard a story once, of a commoner girl who almost froze to death in the depths of winter. Her parents starved before her, an-" Haliet stopped, the tip of Artic's rapier hovering less than an inch from his eye.
"Silence yourself," Artic said, monotone replaced by pure, icy rage. "Before you say something that will get you killed."
"Ah, I almost forgot why we never get together like this," Gregg interrupted with a laugh, his solid white eyes glowing with power. "Too much ego in one space. Put your rapier down, Artic. It wouldn't do to kill our allies before the biggest event of the century, hmm?"
Artic humphed, and when Haliet blinked, her sword was once again sheathed, as if she'd never drawn it.
What do you think of them, Gregg? I know there aren't any Energy nor Lightning mages amongst them, but surely your tutelage has taught them something."
"Aye, I believe I've instilled some delicacy and control into the mages amongst them," Gregg answered with a nod, his eyes flaring with power. "With great power comes the need for greater control, lest you destroy what you strived to protect." Haliet nodded his thanks. Gregg required more control than most, lest he accidentally rip his body apart.
There was a loud crash, and the three turned to face Pan and her student. The giant vine had been split into three, and now acted as dodging practice for the drilling heroes.
"That woman already terrifies me," Gregg quietly admitted. "And now she's grooming an apprentice? I fear for the world, my friend."
"So do I," Haliet answered. "So do I."
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Comments
Phlosioneer
Agreed, though contacting the cores may be difficult. At least when dealing with Instincts he had to touch it with a mana tendril, but armor falls within Life's Protection,'s radius so that's tough to manage.
Phlosioneer
He's admitted that the invasion is going to require immense amounts of mana to regrow defenders, so I don't think Faerie stage is happening until afterwards.
Liam
I hope you had a happy birthday, you are doing amazing work thank you for making this amazing story.
Stranger Danger
This is going to be addressed in the next chapter.
Xylophone Smith
so you're just gonna pretend the mc didn't just admit to being a human in the last chapter also the level system is really broken..
Xeon_1
happy birthday but 28 is nothing wait until you hit 40 and realize half your life is gone that is me this year
Phoenix
Happy birthday 🎂 🥳 thank for the hard work you done love it enjoy your birthday and may your luck be abundant
Tech Priest
Bro the tutorial ended with the first invasion this is literally level 2.
Cameron
Ooh, I wonder if this transformation will increase his radius of influence. IIRC it was capped at around 5 miles before... If it's out to even just 10 miles now the crusaders could be in for a nasty surprise when they think they're still in safe(ish) waters. On another note, the Creator might be able to reach Fairie before the Crusade is over. Depending on how much Mana he needs to expend to defend himself. If we assume that 1. each step takes 10 times more mana than the one before and 2. That his ring already contained roughly 3 days of mana before the two days he saved then the time he'd need to save for would be roughly ~~~ Sprite > Spirit = 5 days Spirit > Fairie = 50 days Fairie > Elemental = 500 days Now, that's based on some fairly broad assumptions but I tried to be fairly conservative. It sounded like most cores would take years to complete stage 1, so I don't think that an increase of greater than 100 times longer for each step is very viable. Or you'd be talking multiple centuries to reach Mature/Fairie. > "What they call "Baby dungeons" is our Sprite stage. Young, Spirit. Mature, Fairie, and anything above that is the equivalent of an Elemental."" Realistically I think the extremes are probably about 3 days saving for stage 1 and a 10 times multiplier per stage (which would see the Creator potentially reach Elemental in under a year) and maybe up to 10 days saving for stage 1 and about a 30 times multiplier per stage. Which would see the creator take roughly 9000 days to achieve Fairie > Elemental (+ about 300 days for Spirit > Fairie) Also all of this assumes that he is saving constantly and not reinvesting mana into creating more passive mana income; which would, naturally, blow all these numbers to hell and back.
ReadingButlur
What do you think of them, "Gregg? I know there aren't any Energy nor Lightning mages amongst them, but surely your tutelage has taught them something." Fixed it. The dungeon core fixed upon the chestplate, long beaten into submission by generations of his family, remained silent, as it should. Such beings were tools to be used as humans desired. Huh...well I wonder if there's eery been a conquered core that's ever take over a flesh sack being, I wonder if pushingit into place were the flesh sacks core is would work
Robotic_Obsessive
Thanks for the chapter, and happy (early) birthday! Invaders are fucked lmao, rest in pieces. Now, I wonder if the Creator can make the other dungeon cores revolt? It feels like they've been mentioned to much for you to do nothing with them, so I'm half expecting him to turn their beloved "tools" into revolutionaries fighting for their freedom. Imagine having your own armour fight against you in the middle of battle, you'd get killed in seconds. Now for the errors: *mousy woman in white robes cajoled a spout into a towering vine* Spout is prolly meant to be sprout, considering the context? Idk tho. *For it is not in our most desperate moments* 'For it is not' should be 'For is it not' *What do you think of them, Gregg?* This is the start of someone speaking, but it doesn't have a starting quotation mark. That's it though, good work on the chapter, it was a fun read! Looking forward to the next.
Jahith_Voice
Things are getting fun! TFTC
Moon Winchester
Oh yea
