The Great Core's Paradox

The mana-water glimmered, casting forth a searing radiance that was more than enough to remind me of [Ambusher’s Vision]’s fatal weakness. I twitched the muscles at the corner of my eyes, forcing the connected membrane to shift. The light-inflicted pain disappeared, and the world dimmed, though the brightness never really went away entirely.

After all, the mana-water of the lake lit up the cavern, just as it had in my false-lifes. Only, this time, that same mana-water would be exactly what I needed. Training for what would come next.

I could hardly wait; my mind was flush with visions of fantastical possibilities, of ways that I might be able to harness my newest power to its fullest. Not that I knew how to do any of that yet, or even if the things that I was imagining were even possible in the first place. For all of my experience with death essence in my last life, I hadn’t really used it - just been its unwilling victim.

Things would probably be different from the other side. But still, I was eager to figure things out.

In fact, during my travels to the lake, I had already begun. With my length reduced yet again, I had been forced to have a spore-puppet carry me to speed the journey along; their many legs moved much faster than my tiny slithers, and the travel left room for my mind to wander. To let me think about life and death.

They were connected, at least in part. Opposites, but ones that couldn’t help but touch. Fang and tail, one chasing after the other. Which was which, I couldn’t say. At some points, life seemed the fang; able to devour death in a tide of vitality. At others, it was the other way around; death devoured life instead, consuming it whole.

They were similar in that way, for all their differences. Like staring down into mana-water and watching the illusion it created; a perfect mirror, extraordinarily similar even with all the features flipped.

It was probably that same similarity that led me to the first of my discoveries - that every ability I had learned with life had its mirror in death.

[Life - Invigorating Bite] [Life - Vitality] [Life - Vigor]

[Death - Enervating Bite] [Death - Wither] [Death - Weakness]

Mostly. There were a few that didn’t. Trying to mirror the creation of [Life - Vigorous Spores] just killed my spores, and attempting to make a life version of [Death - Venom] was entirely useless. Still, I was satisfied with the discovery.

It was somewhere to start, and it meant that focusing on one of my essences - either life instead of death or the other way around - wouldn’t necessarily stunt the growth of its opposite. At least, not in the number of abilities I discovered.

Assuming that everything worked out the way I hoped that it did, at least.

I soon found myself at the edge of the lake again. Alone. My Darkweavers were too few to form a trap for the leviathans in this life, and were better used to collect the bad-things I needed from the river before its rushing mass plunged into the lake. The mana-water was bright and clear, pulsing at the edges in a gentle flood, ebbing back and forth along the shoreline. It licked at my scale-flesh, and I found the touch comforting. Pleasant; a lukewarm kiss, charged with hidden power.

Maybe it was just my eagerness warping my perceptions.

I hissed, breathed deep, and then plunged into the water. Slithered out on gentle waves, careful to stay near the shore. I wasn’t sure that I was ready for a leviathan - not yet - but I could easily handle anything else within the lake as long as I kept my head near the surface.

There was no real reason to wait, and I was far from willing to.

I sometimes forgot, with my many advantages, that mana could be horribly complicated. It wasn’t easy; I couldn’t just force it towards whatever end I willed. If I could, I would have found far more ways to use it than I already had. The few abilities that I did have were almost entirely simple things, or gifts of the Great Core’s will. [Mana Venom] and [Death - Venom] were just created from flooding a section of myself. [Life - Invigorating Bite] and its opposite were even simpler than that, pure essence spilling from my fangs. Even my newest abilities, formed from splitting essence into two separate parts - vigor and vitality, weakness and wither - was, in the end, simple.

Nothing like what I could do, if I actually understood. [Little Guardian’s Totem] and [Little Guardian’s Focus] were both proof of that; complicated weaves of mana and essence that I could barely keep track of, shaped by the Great Core’s blessings rather than my own skill.

But it made me wonder if, with actual understanding and practice, I could eventually create anything similar. I doubted that would be anytime soon. But still, I wondered.

Unfortunately, I was stuck with what I had. Fortunately, what I had was still effective - and more than enough to keep me occupied for at least a little while.

A group of Tanglestings floated nearby, their long tendrils twisting and writhing with every movement. They tangled with one another on occasion, pointed ends battling for supremacy of motion. Not out of aggression, but just out of happenstance and necessity.

I watched, my scales coated in a concealing illusion that kept me relatively invisible beside the mana-water that surrounded me, and set to work. Mana twisted and shattered, dying to become death. And then I bore down with my will, splitting what remained in half. Breaking that death into two parts.

Wither; a droplet of decay, dangerous and deadly.

Weakness; a bitter cold that seeped into flesh, torpor made manifest.

When the cloud of Tanglestings drew near enough that I could almost touch its edge, I surged forward to catch the trailing tendrils. The few Blueswifts that I had already managed to catch and devour made the motion swift, [Streamlined Scales II] causing my form to cut through the mana-water with added ease. I stretched outwards.

Death spilled from my fangs, its withering touch carving a line across my own flesh - and then that of my enemy.

Lesser Core Skill: [Death - Wither I] Increased.

[Death - Wither II] Acquired.

Experience Gained!

The cloud of bad-things thrashed as my illusion dropped, the focus necessary to stay entirely hidden lost. A tendril glanced off of my ore-flesh and then another, and another, while others simply swirled in place - an undulating mass of barb-tipped tendrils that shifted and sparked and -

My flesh burned. Twitched. Thrashed. The mana-water around me bubbled and burbled, not just with the violence of motion, but with the strength of innumerable [Sting]s unleashed at once. A cloud of sparking barbs that forced my flesh to twitch and writhe against my will.

My mouth opened, not in a gasp, but in a desperate release of death. A black cloud puffed upwards, mixing with the cloud of flesh that surrounded me. Wither blackened the waters, and flesh blackened in turn.

The mana-water chilled under its touch, and the chaos stilled. Stuttered. Stopped. And still I kept going, releasing everything that I had. Gulping down a mouthful of mana-water, and then releasing what that gave me, too. Again and again, until my lungs burned with the need for air and my scale-flesh started to fall off in strips. Only the occasional rush of life essence, droplets of pure vitality sent flowing through my deteriorating flesh, kept me together.

The tendrils fell limp, withered and moldering. As the cloud cleared, I could make out the lines of withering black that ran up their mass, each accented by strips of flesh just barely holding together. Bits and pieces pulled away as the flow of mana-water worried at tattered connections, teasing at my scale-flesh in passing.

The thought-light flickered with each and every passing Tanglesting, reminding me of my rewards.

Experience Gained!

Experience Gained!

Lesser Core Skill: [Death - Wither II] Increased.

[Death - Wither III] Acquired.

Experience Gained!

Experience Gained!

Experience Gained!

Experience Gained!

Lesser Core Skill: [Death - Wither III] Increased.

[Death - Wither IV] Acquired.

Experience Gained!

Experience Gained!

Experience Gained!

Experience Gained!

Lesser Core Skill: [Death Essence Manipulation II] Increased.

[Death Essence Manipulation III] Acquired.

Experience Gained!

Level up!

1 Trait Point Gained.

Lesser Core Skill: [Death - Wither IV] Increased.

[Death - Wither V] Acquired.

I floated upwards, taking a labored breath once I reached the surface. It was only due to splitting death essence that I made it in time; releasing that much of death essence’s other half, weakness, would have tried to push me into a lethargic torpor, stilling my scale-flesh and ruining my ability to reach fresh air. It meant that I had an excess of weakness chilling my mana core, like a frozen orb that pressed against my head-scales, but I was still alive. I could release death’s other half later - into flesh or air, it didn’t matter as long as it wasn’t the water that surrounded me.

That had been closer than it needed to be. A giant mass of [Sting]s was stronger than I expected, somehow enhanced by the mana-water itself. Still, I hadn’t embarrassed myself by falling victim to the tangle of bad-things, and I knew better now. In the future, I would be more careful.

The mana-water teased at my ruined scale-flesh, and I stretched out to repair it. My damaged length formed a circle, and I found myself floating on the mana-water’s surface, keeping myself moving in a gentle loop in order to stay above water. It lapped at my scales, and I fell into a languid cycle of diminishing and restoring mana, [Mana Restoration]

and the bits of mana-water that found their way into my throat enough to keep myself going.

My scale-flesh healed over, renewed in full, and the thought-light flickered with its congratulations.

Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Vitality X] Increased.

[Life - Vitality XI] Acquired.

Lesser Core Skill: [Life Essence Manipulation VI] Increased.

[Life Essence Manipulation VII] Acquired.

Feeling refreshed, I dipped back beneath the mana-water’s surface, hunting for the decaying remains of the defeated Tanglestings. One by one, bits of stripped flesh found their way into my mouth, until finally I gathered enough to receive the Great Core’s reward.

Transferred to Core.

Blooded Trait Acquisition Progress: 5/5.

Analyzing Blooded Trait…

Acquiring Blooded Trait: [Sting I]

My fangs lightly sparked, and a jolt of electricity ran across my mouth-flesh. A careful nudge later, the thought-light flashed.

Name: Paradox

Species: Snake, Ouroboros

Major Title: [The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail] [Little Guardian]

Minor Titles: [Minor Mana Core] [Venomous Retribution] [Touched By Fire] [Ascended Seeker]

Innate Traits: [Venomous II]

Blooded Traits: [Paralyzing Venom IV] [Poisonous Blood III] [Illusion Spark IV] [Clinging Grasp III] [Sound Shaping VII] [Chains Of The Creator I] [Anticoagulant IV] [Constriction I] [Spore Puppeteer IX] [Ascended Sense I] [Ambusher’s Vision III] [Streamlined Scales II] [Sting I]

Resistances: [Piercing Resistance - Intermediate I] [Venom Resistance - Intermediate II]

Level: 59

Trait Points: 4

Core Skills: [The Endless Cycle] [Chrono Fire] [Verdure Parasite] [The Golem’s Fading Heart]

Lesser Core Skills: [Mana Manipulation XI] [Mana Venom XI] [Mana Fire VII] [Little Guardian’s Totem MAX] [Life Essence Manipulation VII] [Life - Invigorating Bite XI] [Life - Vitality XI] [Life - Vigor III] [Life - Vigorous Spores IV][Little Guardian’s Focus XI] [Death Essence Manipulation III] [Death - Venom IV] [Death - Enervating Bite I] [Death - Wither V] [Death - Weakness I]

Level Rewards: [Traveler] [Mana-Life Conversion] [Mana-Death Conversion] [Mana Restoration]

Description: A growing Ouroboros, symbol of the eternal.

With only one more level until my next reward, I chose to return to the shoreline. It wasn’t worth risking encountering a leviathan when I was so close, not when I needed to spend time increasing my control of death and life beforehand.

Though the flood of weakness-aspected essence still held within my mana core gave me an idea; brought to a strong enough level, I might be able to set a trap to weaken a leviathan enough to more safely defeat - as long as I found a way to protect myself from its effects as well.

I pulled myself onto the shoreline, smooth stone greeting my scale-flesh, and set to work with a quiet hiss. Mana surged, twisted, and shaped itself within my core. Eventually, the thought-light began to flicker.