Noticing a piece of him finally coming back, David called out to himself. ‘Hey, welcome back! So, what did you find?’

 

‘Don’t you already know? We share memories, don’t we?’ - He replied, grumpy from missing out on the fun.

 

‘Yea, but it feels… wrong(?) to look into other’s memories when I don’t need to. Plus, people need communication not to go insane!’

 

‘Pretty sure we are already insane, with speaking to ourselves and all.’

 

‘...’

 

‘...’

 

‘So, what did you find?’ - He diverted.

 

‘Eh, a bunch of fuzzy memories, some see through crystals suspended by some sort of string, what else… Oh, I also found the original owner of this body.’

 

‘YOU WHAT!’ - All the shards called out with perfect unison.

 

‘Yea, it’s just a bloodthirsty crystal. Can’t even talk, the darn thing.’

 

And so, with the moral conundrum both created and solved, work resumed as usual.

David, all seven of him, couldn’t wait. From some tests, he concluded that the thicker the vein the slower it disintegrates from the outside, and after doing some math, a perfect thickness was calculated. And so, a wide vein went all the way to the side of the wall, and smushed into a flat plane on it.

 

CHOMP.

 

The end of the vein began to sizzle and darken, when suddenly a wave of mana slammed into it, and started burning off instead of the vein. David carefully observed the unexpected phenomenon, hoping it would hold.

 

Achievement reached!

Southern Hospitality.

Create a stable dungeon entrance.

Blueprints unlocked. Upkeep options unlocked.

 

A loud cheer could be heard through the ether. But what are blueprints? His [Identify] doesn’t know, maybe the system does?

 

Dungeon Compendium

System > Dungeon > Functions > Support > Blueprints > Definition

The Blueprint system allows for saving and easy replication of dungeon creations such as structures, traps, loot and monsters.

 

David honestly forgot about the compendium. Seeing as he is yet to construct anything, he just shelved the function for later use, and continued his testing.

 

Checking his mana, David saw a tenth of a point per day drain from the hole he created. Running some approximate math in his head, he concluded that it would cost him about seventeen mana an hour to make a doorway he was happy with. Although he wasn’t ready for that cost, he could put up with the current drain in exchange for a more clear view outside.

 

So, shelving the idea of opening up for later, David continued expanding his aura.

Mana Points (MP)

58/7.2 (73)

Rate: 0.3/hr (48/hr)

(0.2/hr + 48/hr) - (0.1/day) - 47/hr [Overflow]

 

Both his mana and aura more than doubled, David was ready, and so he began eating.

 

CHOMP

 

CHOMP

 

CHOMP

 

And in a couple minutes a tunnel all the way from his core to the end of the mountain, he confirmed by the shadow, was clear from stone. He felt out the stone in the perfect passage with an arched roof. The stone wasn’t under too much stress. He sighed a sigh of relief, and prepared for the final bite.

 

CHOMP

 

And felt the air violently rushing into the tunnel, even pushing his crystal a little bit back and ripping some of the veins. Curious, he decided to give it a taste while viewing the alerts.

 

Achievement reached!

You’re going to need a team.

Allow access between the core and outside.

Construct Creation unlocked. Random free construct added.

 

Material Level Increased

Stone (G > F)

Primordial, Complex

Simple stone of unknown composition, gray in color with black specks sprinkled throughout. Solid with little to no cracks.

 

New Material Unlocked!

Air (G)

Primordial, Complex

Simple outside air. Required for breathing in the dungeon.

Upkeep: Fresh Air unlocked.

 

‘Oh wow, that’s a lot.’

 

Finally checking the Upkeep menu instead of intuiting it, David was pleasantly surprised about his counting error.

 

Aura Burn	Constant, Static	13.8/hr
Fresh Air	On Need, Variable	No upkeep (No upkeep - 7.2/hr)

 

Deciding to leave everything as it is, David quickly went to the construct creation menu, suspecting what it really was, and despite being right, he was promptly disappointed.

 

Rabbit (G)

10 Mana Cost, 0.1/hr Mana Upkeep

A sickly rabbit, barely alive.

 

‘Really, rabbits? Oh well, could be bugs or something.’ - David wasn't angry about the bunny being sickly, as one of him had already tried creating the upgraded stone, and it was both more dense and less cracked, so it was only a matter of time and patience until he had better rabbits.

 

David’s curiosity, combined with his overabundance of mana, leads him to summon a bunny… and it is indeed sickly. The tiny baby bunny is missing most of its fur, and has visible bones. It is having great difficulty breathing, and sits without moving.

 

David is mortified. To have created a creature whose whole existence is suffering. He tries to somehow brush the creature's head, and instead receives what the creature thinks, and it's nothing. Absolute nothingness fills the rabbit's head.

 

Relieved that he is not causing unnecessary suffering, David tries to tell the creature to move, and it does so, although sluggishly due to its weakness. Slowly, the rabbit moves towards the exit of the cave. David has seen some grass near the entrance to his cave, but when he tried to eat it from below, he, for some reason, failed.

 

As the rabbit walks out of the cave, it takes a few steps and begins to slowly turn transparent. David’s magic vision shows the rabbit leaking out mana, and there is nothing he can do about it. Now that the rabbit is out of his aura, he can’t even tell it to turn around, and so it marches to the patch of grass, oblivious to its own demise.

 

Just as it was about to re-enter David’s aura, grass in its teeth, it collapsed and exploded into mana, the grass just out of reach for him. A couple seconds later, another bunny, without even fully exiting his aura, takes the grass in its mouth, turns around, walks a step, and spits it out. Say what you will about David, but he always strived to be pragmatic.

 

New Material Unlocked!

Plant (G)

Derivative, Extremely Complex

A simple natural material with a high range of possibilities.

 

New Construct Unlocked!

Grass (G)

0.01 Mana Cost, 0.1/y Mana Upkeep

A sickly plant, partially rotting.

Upkeep: Plant Life unlocked.

 

With grass now available, and still feeling slightly bad for the bunnies, he spent another ten mana to make a thousand blades of grass a couple steps from the entrance, and although the grass was wilting and kinda brownish, the rabbit had no qualms about eating it.