The hours passed in peace, as if the combat had never happened. Some time ago, 1 and 2 had fallen asleep next to her heart, taking a much deserved rest after having put themselves at risk. She hadn't managed to do anything with all this time, though... She wasn't even capable of paying attention to her surroundings at the moment. After the two major threats to her safety had left the area - the humans through their legs, and the gnolls through death - the emergency override that had allowed her to get past fundamental issues dropped, and she found herself facing an issue that had been facing her nearly since the moment she appeared on the face of the planet. The lack of the system's functions, and the fundamental logical errors that created had caused her to enter loops of logic with no end. Attempting to resolve anything on the list of objectives she needed to complete left her at some step being unable to do anything, for lack of the system that she was built to use at every turn of inconvenience. Whether it was attaining a constant stream of resources and energy, a safety net to ensure that she would not have to feel so vulnerable to mere roaming animals, growing her roster of subordinates, or expanding her sphere of control and establishing herself as a power in the area, it all led to the same irritating loop.
Even so, unable to change the processes that she had been constructed with, she kept attempting to use methods dependent on the non-functional system, whether they be high-risk methods like employing use of the 'gacha' maintained by her fellow cores essentially auctioning off hand-downs, attempts to use the communications that were supposed to be maintained between cores by the system, attempts to reference up-to-date maps of the world, attempts to utilize the expansive documentation of strategies that were too large to store in her own data... Slowly, as cores were built to be able to learn and adopt unique thought processes so as to enable the possibility of a remarkably clever individual growing out of the crop, she was learning to cut those dead end thought processes out of herself, but it was going incredibly slowly as there were so many preset strategies that relied in some degree on a functional system. Especially, as luck was valued just as much as strategy, there were many hard coded processes she was supposed to have executed on her birth like using the 'gacha' of hand-me-downs maintained by her peers that had not been able to run, and were throwing her into an outright mess as she forcefully had to overwrite those protocols one by one.
Annoyingly enough, the data and strategies that she had been created with were all only serving as hindrances right now, even though they were supposed to have been a great boon collected from the millions of successes that had came before her.
After repeating tedious internal work countless times, she finally got knocked out of the endless loops. Not by finally managing to teach herself that strategies and processes relying on the system no longer work, but because of a spark of pain from her heart that immediately triggered another emergency override. Looking down, she saw the sight of 2 snarling, pinning down 1, almost looking like a play fight between the two small foxes if not for the fact that the leg of her heart was bleeding from a bite mark. She watched for a moment, looked at 1, and after thinking she leaned forward and pulled 2 off of their sibling. "It's alright. She was doing it for a good reason." She looked over to 1, and scratched underneath the fox's chin, giving it a reward in the least expensive way possible. She had to be careful about resources while they didn't have a stable income. "You're a smart girl." In spite of not having used the gacha, it seemed like her luck had proved itself in another way - when creating something that the core was unfamiliar with and there was no supporting data for... Like, for example, the aggregated data she was supposed to be able to access through the system, the way that the thing is created was randomized. It seemed like 1, though weaker than her sibling, had come out smarter than she could have hoped for. 2, meanwhile, was noticeably more agile than most of the animals in the surroundings.
Though neither of them were as strong as proper monsters for the moment, they were better than a single goblin - the best alternative, cost wise. With the resources she had gained, harvesting the gnoll corpses, she could make more servants, and she was considering making some. Since she had harvested them, breaking them down, she did have a small amount of understanding of the monsters, and hopefully could manipulate their creation in a positive way... Or, more specifically, to make them cheaper so that she could have more. Since the surrounding area was a wood, it wasn't the worst idea to get servants to hunt in the surrounding area and harvest the plants as well. One of the strategies for being without a source was to start a garden and let the materials used to make seedlings bloom into a bigger payoff. It was a dreadfully slow approach though, and whether she was safe to sink her limited resources into that strategy and stay safe until the payoff was a question that didn't have a certain answer. Splitting her resources into a farm wasn't the best idea, since it would be something she needed to make sure stays safe, and her fighting abilities obviously weren't up to par.
... The risk was fine, but the amount of time investment made it questionable. In the end, she created two weak gnolls and a saw, so that they could get to work cutting down some of the large firs surrounding the cave entrance. Unfortunately, those to cost a decent amount of resources, and while the trees they cut would eventually become more resources she still needed to worry about feeding her servants. After a moment, she looked to the arctic foxes, 1 and 2, both faster than many animals in the area with 2 demonstrating extraordinary speed. While they were small and not powerful, they would likely be able to catch at least some food, all while leveling up in the process. Though she didn't understand well, most of the relevant data having been stored on the system instead of coming imprinted on her memory, animals, monsters, and humans had their own form of system. It allowed them to 'level up' after killing others or achieving other goals, and even change their own bodies... In a way, similar to what she herself does in remodeling the dungeon that is her body.
Given that the two foxes had already finished off some gnolls that the humans had failed to fully kill, the two had likely already picked up a few levels, and though she didn't have a good grasp of how levels worked she was definitely interested in her two most mobile subordinates growing stronger. Speed, when controlling situations, was one of the most important factors alongside information. For now, 1 and 2 were her most valuable assets.
"1, 2, go out and hunt as much as you can, alright? But stay near, and most importantly, stay safe. You're really important to me." The two gnolls had purposefully been weakened to make them cheaper after all. It was only natural that the two animals were her lifeline. "And if I start wandering off again, be sure to knock me out of it." Rather than take the time right now while she was at risk, it was better to maintain her functions. Even though she was in emergency mode, or maybe because of it, she was managing to deal with her internal issues in the background. Though incredibly slow in comparison to dedicating everything to fixing the issues, it was that much less time she would have to spend when she finally does allow herself to black out and permanently fix the errors related to her inability to use system functions.
The two foxes barked, acknowledging her, and once again left through the small holes. Maintaining as much of an alert state as she was capable of, she switched between watching the two foxes, the skinny gnoll lumberjack pair, and scanning the surroundings for any threats.
Now that I'm thinking about it, animals like foxes who leveled up probably are rare. Like foxes will never be able to kill gnolls by themselves in normal conditions, and gnolls don't even seemed to be a high level monster. For what we saw, foxes haven't get a significant upgrade after killing these gnolls.
Correct! I unfortunately won’t be able to include many of this world’s secrets in this story, but animals other than strong bears or apex predators leveling up is incredibly rare. Cores normally skip straight to the gacha and goblins, so it’s not like there are many artificially leveled animals either.
As for why they haven’t received a large upgrade yet, that will be covered in more depth as BEA learns more about how leveling works
So far I am hooked and can't wait to see what becomes of this story.
Okay, looks like it actually posted this time.
Sorry! this ended up being two days late, last night I published the chapter and went to bed, but I think I managed to mess with Scribblehub somehow - the chapter didn't go public, even though it said it was published, and I didn't realize until recently. I hope you all enjoy anyways! I'll see if I can fit in extra chapters somewhere to make up for this.