A Demon's Core

I think my first task will be making my way down the stairs. Preferably to the next floor down at least. This will give me earlier warning of incoming threats, which is important now as it is not feasible to maintain a constant lookout with only three adult imps. It will also give more chances for them to be weakened on approach.

While I wait for enough mana to start on that, I task my imps with removing the humans; after gathering all of their weapons and any other useful items they can from the bodies, of course. Just taking them outside the building should be enough I hope. I know there is a risk that dumping them just outside the entrance will likely attract beasts, but the ground floor has more than one entrance so my imps can just use a different door until they are gone.

Noctis is still feeding on one of them and has not finished with it yet so it would be foolish to try to take that one away, but the other six still need to go. I am impressed when I see Violet is able to move one of the bodies by herself. It is not easy, but she is able to drag the corpse without assistance. Rose and Lily working together struggle to do the same. Calla tries to help of course, but her contributions are not particularly impactful. I guess Violet’s transformation also enhanced her physical strength quite significantly.

When the three of them work together they can move the bodies without too much difficulty, all under the watchful gaze of Calla, who has elected to take on a supervisory role...Until she gets bored and wanders off to play with Noctis.

The imps' bodies are still a concern though. It turns out my imps are capable of eating far more than I expected, though my expectations may have been a little biased due to how little I have seen them eat previously; they did say they have been eating less than normal since coming here. Between the four of them they manage to fully consume the first one in only half a day. But there is still six more. Even if they can keep up the same pace, it will still take them at least another three days more to finish the rest.

Are you sure you are going to be able to finish...eating before the meat spoils? I ask Rose.

“I’m not sure what you mean.” She responds.

Before the meat rots and becomes inedible.

“Rotting meat doesn’t taste as good, but it’s hardly inedible. To not eat it just because of that would be wasteful.” She retorts.

Will it not make you sick? Her face takes on the blank expression of someone who feels like they have just been asked a stupid question.

“No. Why would it?” That is a good question actually. Why do I assume it would make them ill? I have obviously never tried it myself. Yet I can not ignore the idea that it carries diseases and bacteria that should be harmful. It is one of those strange things that I just know for some reason.

What of the larger demons. Do they ever become unwell from eating such things? She looks perplexed as she ponders the question.

“Now that you mention it. The larger demons don’t eat rotting food usually. They would often throw it away if it got to that point. I always assumed it was just because they were picky eaters. But it makes more sense if it’s something that could actually make them sick.”

So does this mean imps are also carrion feeders then? But this may not be true for other varieties of demons. That seems a little unsavory to me, but I trust them to know what is and what is not safe for them to eat.

After a day of waiting I feel like I have got enough mana to start working on the stairs. Going through the stairwell door I follow the wall to the left, trying to keep this strip along the wall as thin as possible. I only intend to use about three quarters of the mana I have gathered, but that is enough to reach the edge of the first step leading down.

The rest of the mana I intend to store in the crystals. I plan to do this everyday from now on. When the crystals have enough mana stored in them I will use it for summoning. While I know it is not a good idea to spread resources too thin, it feels better to do this than to spend everything I have on only one task at a time.

However when I check on the crystals I am shocked to see that none of them are black. They all turned black when I used the mana within them to summon Noctis and I later confirmed that turning black meant they were completely empty of mana. But now all of them have a dark purple colour. It is dark enough that it could probably be missed with just a casual look. But looking at them as closely as I am now the colour is clearly there.

I touch one of them and am able to absorb a tiny bit of mana from it. I did not put mana into any of them. Yet they all seem have gained a little bit somehow. If these crystals are capable of regenerating mana on their own, then learning how to create them is suddenly much higher on my priority list. I will put off storing mana for summoning for now until I figure this out.

But where to start? I know from experience that just releasing mana into my surroundings does not accomplish anything. But maybe drawing from that experience is a good place to start. When I created this body that allows me to move around, I had to hold on to the mana I was releasing and shape it.

I gather mana in my hands and visualize the shape I want it to take. Nothing big or complex, just a small crystal like the others. I have gathered my mana but it is not taking shape. I am basically holding almost all of the mana I have left in my hands right now, but nothing is happening.

But this is not like my body which is merely a projection of my consciousness outside my core. I am actually trying to create solid matter here. Maybe I need to condense it? It is worth a try. I slowly bring my hands together focusing on pushing the mana into a smaller space. It is definitely doing something. As I bring my hands closer together I can feel resistance from the mana pushing back. I continue to condense it further and it is actually getting difficult to hold it. But it is still not crystallizing. I am missing something.

I need to think of something quickly. It is getting harder to maintain this pressure with each passing moment and I am concerned about what could happen if I were to let it go at this stage. Maybe it needs a solid surface to grow on. Natural crystals certainly do not grown out of thin air.

I carefully move to place this condensed mana on the shelf inside the cabinet slightly separate from where the other crystals are. Once the mana is close enough to touch the mana filaments running through the shelf all the pressure and resistance I was feeling immediately disappears as the mana I was holding solidifies and I see a small glowing pink crystal has grown.

I am glad that worked. I do not know how much longer I could have held onto that. Perhaps that is something worth investigating. What would happen if I did release a highly pressurized, condensed ball of mana? Would it create an explosion? Is that something I could use as a weapon against attackers? I will add that to my to do list.

For now I need to inspect my new crystal. It is not very big, but it is not the smallest I have. I drain the mana from it until it turns black and find that it only contains about one fifth of the mana that was used to create it. I should not be surprised that converting mana into a solid form would consume a lot. I essentially just converted energy into matter. I would question if such a thing were even possible if I had not just done it myself. Looking at how many crystals grew from the attack I realize I must have gained an extraordinary amount of mana.

But now I need to decide how I will allocate my mana going forward. I will use half of my mana each day to experiment with growing new crystals and the other half I will use to continue moving down the stairs. I will not store any more in the crystals and instead just let them regenerate their mana naturally. When they have accumulated enough, then I will use that for summoning.

Something about my connection to Violet has changed since her resurrection. I think it has gotten stronger. Usually when an imp leaves my domain I lose all contact with them. I can not speak to them or sense their presence in any way. They are just completely gone from my perception. But when Violet leaves now I can still feel her presence. While I can not pinpoint her exact location, I can tell her general direction and distance relative to my core. It is an unusual sensation. Like my senses are extending beyond my border, but only in a very narrow and specific way.

I can even talk to her when she is out now by reaching out to her through that connection. It takes more mana and requires me to maintain the link in order to hear her reply, which slowly drains mana as long as it is active. But this is still an important development. It means I can contact her and tell her to return if something happens while she is out.

She is currently at the clothes store with Rose. As I had suspected, some of her clothes no longer fit her, she was particularly devastated that her pink fuzzy onesie is too small now. Suddenly I feel something strange. The connection between Violet and I starts vibrating...sort of. No, it is not exactly vibration, but it definitely feels unusual. I concentrate on the feeling and suddenly I can hear her voice and can feel the slight drain on my mana.

‘Magentam, I found a bug!’ She sounds very excited. She does not say anymore, but I get the feeling that she wants me to ask about it.

...Okay, what kind of bug is it?

‘It’s round and red and it has black spots.’ That sounds like she might have found a ladybug. ‘It’s almost as big as my hand.’ ...maybe not a ladybug then. There is silence for a few moments and I think she is finished with her report. ‘It tastes good.’ She follows up.

Excellent. you can tell me all about it when you get back. When she does not say anything more for a few seconds I assume she is done and let the link fade.

So she is able to reach out along the connection as well. This is an even more valuable discovery than I initially thought. She can instantly report to me any interesting, important or potentially dangerous things that she finds when she is outside. Preferably more important things than just tasty bugs.

When she came back she did, in fact, tell me all about it. Apparently it was not easy to catch, mostly due to it’s ability to fly. But she persevered, much to the exasperation of Rose, and eventually succeeded. She also managed to find a new onesie, just as pink and just as fuzzy as the first one.

Over the next few days I continue to move down the stairs. First going across the top step. Then moving down four steps on the right side before going across that step. After moving down another four steps, on the left side this time, I am about to go across this step to the other side when I stop.

I should not make a consistent pattern. Consistency is predictable and easy to figure out. If invaders figure out the pattern then it would be easy for them follow the mana filaments back and forth all the way up. It would still slow them down, but what was intended to be an actual obstacle would instead become little more than a nuisance. I need to be inconsistent. I move down one more step before crossing over back to the right side.

In my continued experiments with the dungeon crystals I have found that I can further increase the size of a crystal by adding more condensed mana to it. But it only works on crystals that are already at their mana capacity. I can also create them in different shapes. Basic shapes are easy, but the difficulty increases in proportion to the complexity of the shape I am trying to create. Not that it requires more mana, just more focus and concentration to get the shape right.

I am currently trying to make one that is shaped like an imp with a little success. I have managed to make it vaguely imp shaped in that it has two arms, two legs, a little sphere for the head and pointy little spike on the back for the tail. Not bad for only a few days effort, but it still needs some work.

During that time I also spoke to Rose about the cracks she left in the floor. Her immediate reaction was to desperately apologize, just like last time. I had to reassure her once again that I was not angry, merely curious about how she did it. Though I did ask her to try not to do it again lest she start to damage the structural stability of the floor. She did not know how she did, but assured me she would try to figure it out.

The imps have consumed most of the bodies now. I expected them to attract bugs or something, but they never came, not even flies. Not only that, the bodies did not appear to visibly deteriorate much. I can not say anything for how they smelled as I do not have a sense of smell. But it still seems quite unusual. The same could not be said for the human body that was left for Noctis. It was attracting bugs, though even that was not as many as expected. But Noctis managed to finish eating the human faster than the imps could finish theirs.

There is only one imp body remaining now. Violet’s original body. I think they left it for last on purpose. They all seem nervous around it. I can understand that. I still find it slightly disturbing when I see it. Surprisingly Violet herself is the first one to take a bite. I was was not sure about what they told me about gaining strength from eating other imps before. I did not notice any changes in them as they ate the other corpses. But as they eat this last one I am noticing some definite reactions from Violet and Rose.

It started with Violet. A faint pulsing of energy that I can feel through our connection. It is not strong and I am sure the only reason I can feel it at all is because of how our connection has been strengthened since I brought her back to life. But it was enough to get my attention. Which then allowed me to notice Rose’s mana flaring ever so slightly. It is almost imperceptible. I do not think I even would have noticed if I had not been paying close attention. I can not feel anything from Lily or Calla though. I do not know what these reactions mean or if they really are getting stronger in some way but something is certainly happening to them.

I feel something coming up the stairs now as they cross over the lowest of the claimed steps. I know what they are without having to see them directly. After two encounters I am rather confident in my ability to identify them based on the way they feel when they enter my domain. So distinctly different from my imps.

Only four days after their last attack. More humans have come. But only two this time. Curious. What exactly do they expect to accomplish with only two? It takes quite a while for them to cross the next step, but when they do it is only one of them. The second does not follow. After some more waiting the one who crossed the second step goes back over it again in the other direction then they both leave together.

This is the kind of outcome I wanted. An effective deterrent. They can feel the effect it has on them before they have even managed to find anything. So they make the smart choice to leave and I gain mana without even having to fight. One of them passed through my domain four times. I can only imagine the kind of effect that would have on them. A nice mana boost for me though.

I am sure they will be back. They will probably bring someone who is mana sensitive next time to guide them. I will spread even further by then. There is much to do.