Aurum - Year 1          {2 Months later }

 

"This is the strongest mana battery we can produce mom!" Declared a spell caster and his party.

In the last few months we have been focusing on magical research and development, the creation of the mana fluid showed us that there were many possibilities in the area of artifice. Upon studying the mana fluid we discovered that it was basically battery fluid, it could help immensely in conducting magical energy (living mana), and was capable of keeping living mana in its stable form for a short period of time without decaying.

Normally when we flooded an item with mana, that item would break, crumble, or simply melt. But even so, all things in the world have at least a trace of mana in their bodies. A stone has mana, leaves have mana. Creatures that can't use mana have mana!

This magical energy in the world seemed like radiation for me, it infiltrated everything, anything, some things could stop and contain it, but never definitively. The energy didn't seem harmful at all, that is until you tried to flood something with mana. We didn't know why all things in the world had this energy, and what the "source" of all this mana was, or even why magical creatures or items that can't use mana still have slight traces of mana. But the most likely thing was that this energy that came from somewhere was responsible for everything being so... Magical? It's kind of obvious that magic makes things magical, but this energy still reminded me a lot of the radiation in my world.

It could cause mutations upon long term contact (evolutions), it could cause damage if used in large quantity (Mana Poisoning), and it could be used to energize other things (skills).

It made me wonder if this world wasn't my world, just billions or trillions of years in the future, because well. The sky was still blue, we still had a sun, (only bigger), a moon, stars, green grass, and many animals that seem to be descendants of the animals in my world.

Coming back with the mana fluid, the fluid allowed us to create better versions of portable batteries, these new batteries were bigger and heavier, but they could store more mana for a longer time.

The mana fluid was adjusted, its ingredients were changed by the development and research club, so that they created a more stable and productive mana fluid. The new core of the battery was a series of fragments of mana crystals wrapped around living wood roots. The nucleus was then stored inside a cylinder made of mud, wax, wood and stones and rolled up like living wood roots.

The new batteries looked like cylinders made of dark brown roots, and each battery had 2 white roots coming out of the top. These white roots were living wood roots too, but living wood created from another tree. These white roots could conduct mana as well, but they only did so when there was a force pushing or pulling mana. It wasn't like begonia living wood roots, which carried mana all the time as long they had access to the energy. These white roots were more "economical", but the problem was that they had a limit to how much living mana could pass through them.

I could pull all the energy from the mana pool at once, as long I had space for that mana in my body, but these white roots could only pull about 0.1 mana per second, making the process of withdrawing and putting energy harder.

The batteries also had a lifespan, which was nothing less than 5 days, after that time the mana fluid began to rot, and lose its properties, and if it was not changed soon it would rot the entire battery with it. I think that's what I get for creating batteries with "living" materials.

The new battery allowed me to have a short-term supply of mana, the boys were still figuring out ways to use that live mana. Since it seems that to manipulate living mana you need affinity with [life], without that you cannot manipulate it. Jus transport it, the boys were able to inject small amounts of living mana into objects using living wood roots, and a little help from Muck.

Muck was very good at manipulating living mana, he could attract it to his body, and when he was "overloaded" with living mana he could throw all this excess into the air in waves, as if he were doing photosynthesis.

This allowed the research club to create a Muck box. The box was made with the best mana isolation items we had and it was kind of the only way we could create an environment full of living mana for a few minutes.

If poured into the natural world, the live mana would quickly decay to common mana, but in closed rooms, this decay happened more slowly.

An example of this would be my throne room and the royal garden, in both places the living mana decayed more slowly, but it still only took a few seconds to disappear. Whereas if the living mana were outside the hive, or outside these 2 rooms, the mana would decay almost instantly after leaving my body.

The Muck "box" was nothing more than a box made of clay, stones, wax, wax alloy, leaves and wood, everything we could to guarantee the isolation of the room, the room was filled with live moss in every corner , and muck felt very happy and comfortable in the place.

When Muck was placed in the room, he would give him some batteries of living mana, and he would be accompanied by some living creatures, such as Wappos, larvae eggs, aphids, seeds, leaves and some random items.

We were trying to create an environment full of living mana, if our theories were right this would create items and living beings with life affinity, or at least more "diluted" versions of [life] affinity. We were trying to imitate what was happening in the poisonous forest. Everything in that place had some kind of affinity with [poison] [death] or [curse], I don't know what it was, but it certainly wasn't a good thing.

The tests were.... Disappointing. The concentration of mana in the environment was horrible, very low. And the living creatures didn't seem to mind the magical energy with affinity in the environment, Muck on the other hand became very cheerful, creating some golden flowers and becoming more energetic.

Muck was a mystery, he wasn't my "Ally", he was my pet. But I'm absolutely sure that Muck wouldn't do anything if he saw me in danger, he didn't seem to have the intelligence for that. I thought Muck was like a golem, he must be in the same "category" as them, but I can't give him commands. All I got was sympathy from him, and that was because I was the only other being with live mana in this hive.

Muck is like a mosquito attracted to light, it dries out anyone who has live mana, be it me, an enemy, or a mana battery. Muck can produce his own living mana, but to do so he had to stay still all day, so he just stayed close to me, trying to eat my mana.

We tried to create a new core for Muck, one that could store more mana, and that was more stable. The end result was a hollow walnut. Created by craftsmen, it was reforced with wax alloy, and flooded with part mana fluid, and part living essence. Some fragments of mana crystals, and white living wood roots.

The result was a strange-looking acorn, but it could store 1.4 mana points, a great upgrade for Muck, but when we changed its core we realized that it was no longer Muck who was there.

 

 

it was exactly the same moss, the same stats, and same skills, the only thing that changed was his [Mp]. But he lost the name I had given him.

Were names really that important? I managed to give a name for a creature that wasn't even alive, Muck is more a item than a living being, so if I brought him back in another body would he still be (Muck - the living Moss)?

'Whatever'

I decide to stop thinking about it too much, and leave the new vineborn unnamed, and in the care of the workers.

I created a new personal hobby, and I was thinking about how to turn it into work. My hobby consisted of raising plants, I would ask the scouts to go after unique and rare plants, and then I would feed them life essence and daily doses of living mana.

This created a beautiful garden with many unique plants, the garden became so large that it had to be moved to the floor of the inner ring. Growing quietly in the same place where the big tree stood. We didn't have buildings clinging to trees, not anymore. But now we're back with them, creating large surfaces to accommodate several garden plants.

The tree wasn't being harmed, it was just benefiting from this whole thing, it had become the home of our most powerful mana battery, and it could even eat a little bit of life essence from time to time. The garden also brought biodiversity, guaranteeing cleaner and healthier air for the inner circle.

I had a lot of cool plants, like mini roses, bell-bottom plants, lavender, ferns, vines, rose bushes and other small plants.

But my favorite from this new batch was without a doubt the mushroom.

The mushroom in question was called [Kin Mistcap], a gentle-looking mushroom, pale blue colors, and small white dots. The mushroom could cause permanent blindness if dried, crushed, turned into powder and thrown into the eyes, but it was harmless in its natural state, it could cause a stomach ache if eaten, but it would not kill anyone.

The mushroom has been receiving daily doses of mana and living essence, but I didn't like it because it was a mushroom, I liked it because it produced mycelium.

Wappos could also produce mycelium, but it looked like low-quality mycelium, while these little guys started producing pale white mycelium, and little potatoes!

At the time I didn't really know what to do with it, these tiny potatoes looked like sponges, and didn't seem edible, so I left the mushroom alone, but now I had the unusable Muck nucleus and new living matter.

When Yan arrived at the garden carrying the Muck nucleus, he asked the farmers to dig up some mycelium and put it in a jar, when everything was ready Yan placed the Muck nucleus on the mycelium and waited, but nothing happened, the mycelium didn't wrap around the nucleus like living moss, and it didn't seem like anything would happen.

'Mother?' Yan asked.

'Hmm... It seems like I can't go around creating vineborns to the left and right... I must need a plant with [life] affinity çile living moss to create more vineborns, it seems like a lot of work. ...But I can still create an army of Muck made from moss, as long I have the mana cores for it...'

'What do I do?' Yan asked.

'Bring him back, and put him in some live moss, it's a shame we can't create a Muck made from mycelium, but we won't leave him without a body.'

---

 

We were having some problems with Hilda. Contact between her and Ciel was improving, and she was starting to ask more questions.

Like why we lived in a tower, why we could talk, what we were doing inside the wax walls.

And what was Ciel?

The most annoying of all was her request to move. She wanted us to allow and help the kobolds to move, the kobold group as a whole didn't seem to like the idea, but Hilda was the type to make the choice for the entire group and then talk to them after.

We didn't want anyone around, not that close, so we refused. Ciel also started gaining a lot of XP. Hilda sometimes hunted small animals, such as rabbits and mice. It was nothing to her, a drop in the bucket. But for Ciel it was a whole new wave of Xp.

There was a clear preference of the system for fights and conflicts. The system seemed to want everyone to kill themselves to evolve, there were [traits] like [Polonizer], which gave Xp. But a worker who worked all day without stopping as a pollinator couldn't even earn the same amount of Xp as a soldier would earn from an single kill.

This created a clear social divide in the hive. Between those who were powerful and those who were weak. As bees this wasn't a big problem for us, it was very common to see a level 2 cook, giving orders to a level 5 sworder, but that was just because of my influence.

Hilda followed her leader, a certain Onix Grayon, his orders were the most important and should be followed, but only because he was the strongest in her group. And even so, Onix didn't have the last word, his allies could disagree with him, and he would have to find a middle ground, because even though he was the strongest, it doesn't mean he could win against all the kobolds against him.

In this world, those who have power seem to govern, which is not good news. If I meet other humanoids, who are in a much better situation than Hilda's group, what would I do?

Would i offer them some damn tea? Because if they wanted to kill me I wouldn't have anything to do, I don't guarantee victory, not even against Hilda, imagine a group prepared to kill me.

I didn't like that, this idea of waking up and finding out that this could be my last day, some people say "You can't avoid death, just live our life", but I can at least lessen my chances of dying, if a meteor fall on my head or the world is swallowed by a black hole I wouldn't complain, but if I woke up one day and saw everything I built being destroyed because I wasn't prepared, then I wouldn't accept that kind of death.

This brought me back to my study of diseases and deadly weapons. I don't like the idea of sending the soldiers to dead, I'm almost sure they can beat Hilda, but I also don't think she would just give herself up, if we attacked her, many of my children could die in the fight.

And I wasn't willing to let them die for that.

Now I was observing the infected mushroom a few months ago with the research group, it was still... alive? The mushroom had become a dried out mushroom, like a corpse full of dried meat between the bones, and the worst of it was that I could still see some movements, and his eyes moving from side to side, he was lying in a pile of his own decomposed body, and would soon die, but he still lived for a long time, or perhaps the disease was purposely keeping him alive.

I had never seen a disease like this, I had no intention when I created it, I just wanted it to be lethal and spread quickly. But looking at this... I think I created the Wappos zombie virus?

The disease caused the infected wappo to show symptoms of rabies. After a few days he would start to get aggressive, and would go after other Wappos, biting and punching them, the Wappos that were bitten would then start to show the same symptoms, and if he wasn't contained this could end up destroying our farm.

The thing was, the Wappos were the only ones affected by this disease, other creatures didn't even react to the disease, and those who did only seemed to contract an infection. I couldn't tell if it was because the "progenitor" of the disease was a Wappo, or if it was because Wappos are so weak that the disease only worked on them.

My tests with the spiny larvae showed that it could be a little of both, the Wappos didn't seem to have an immune system, they didn't have defenses, and i don't think they needed them. Their survival strategy was: Eat, grow, reproduce, die. They didn't worry about predators, just finding a comfortable place to reproduce, and since they could reproduce like crazy there was no problem with losing a few dozen or hundreds of members along the way.

My spell [Tainted Touch] could create diseases, but it was very abstract, diseases are something very general...

I could create a mild flu, or smallpox. But for that I had to understand about diseases. To create a functional disease I would need to give it a "manual" something like "10 steps to contaminate and kill your target". If I didn't provide this information, the disease would just act like a poison, trying to invade the body and spread everywhere. But my tests with plants showed that if I gave the spell a focus, a purpose, it would try to fulfill that purpose.

It's like digging a trench for a river, if everything goes well it will follow the defined path, but it is still possible for detours to occur and parts of the path to be ignored if they are not well prepared.

And I had a good understanding of how diseases worked. I wasn't a specialist, my mother wanted me to be a doctor, and I think I could have been a microbiologist in another life, but now, I wasn't a layman in the area of diseases.

For a disease to successfully infect its target, it had to remain anonymous, grow, spread throughout the body without the target noticing. And only then start killing it, creating a lethal disease would be of no use if it were quick to act, the disease would not spread, and it would die along with the host. Now if I created a disease that focused on tricking the body, on saying "everything is fine, nothing wrong here", while it spreads and builds strength, then I would have a lethal disease, that disease could spread to multiple targets, whether by touch, blood, an intermediary, or even air.

But my experiments with some plants showed me that diseases didn't have such a big impact, at least my diseases did. I had a room full of mini roses, only 1 was contaminated, and the rest were left in a healthy state. Within a few days, the roses closest to the infected plant began to show the same symptoms, yellowing leaves, deformities, and loss of color. After a few more days, another group of flowers became infected, but this time the effects were smaller, as if they were learning to fight the disease before they even had the disease. And after a few more days no other roses were contaminated, the disease died. The roses that suffered from the disease and did not die were left with the mark of the disease, but were growing back as if nothing had ever happened.

This seemed to be some kind of communication between the plants, as if they were saying to each other "HEY! That guy is sick! Get ready for what's coming!". After some tests we confirmed that the plants could adapt to diseases. Some plants would die from the disease, but before dying they would send messages to other nearby plants about the danger of the disease.

In our tests, we placed a silk net around a contaminated rose, waited a few days, and then contaminated all the roses, but after a few days the group of plants had still managed to survive and defeat the disease. In another test, we placed all the mini roses in wax vases, and contaminated a single plant. This time around 40% of the entire group died from the disease, but the last few remaining managed to defeat the disease.

And in the last test, we infected a single rose, and we put up a net. When this rose presented an advanced stage of the disease, we released the net, and more than 90% of the roses died after a few days.

The disease needed time alone, to "ferment" and prepare to wreak havoc, without that period of time it would become weak. But if the disease was discovered early, the group could gain immunity against it, which wasn't good news for me.

'What do I do? In principle it's easy, the disease just need to hide, multiply, spread, and then kill the current host. But how the hell do I put all these commands into one spell!?'

'-Why not start small, mom? You can try to create diseases capable of just killing the target.' My secretary said.

'But then I wouldn't gain much Xp, and I would waste Mp on a single target...'

'Not exactly a problem right? That's what we have mana batteries for, couldn't you just create poisoned weapons for the soldiers? Like toxic thorns, or spears with infectious tips?' Said Emi, my personal secretary.

'It could work... That way the soldiers wouldn't need to focus on killing the target, just making sure he was injured...'

Following Emi's idea, I ask one of the spearmen to bring me his thorn, I ask for some silk from the weavers, and wax for the builders. I wrap the stinger, which looks like a small piece of metal, in silk, leaving only the lethal tip sticking out. I glue everything together with a little carpenters' glue, and create a part made of wax where the spearman would grab the harpoon. Then I focus my [Tainted Touch] spell and try to create a spell that will definitely kill the target. After the black aura forms over my claws, I touch the tip of the spear and see it turning a metallic gray to a jet black.

 

 

'Wow! I really can create an weapon!'