The experiments into making this core thing were not panning out as well I had hoped they would, but thankfully not as poorly as I thought it could. Nothing had exploded yet which is a major thing I was afraid of when manipulating mana like this, so it isn’t all downsides. I just wish there where some upsides to it but what can you do. Well I guess I will just have to keep making light bulbs till I find all the ways I can’t make them………..or maybe just steal the idea. I chuckle to myself as I continue working through the problem, the most recent experiment being to try and hold the energy and compress it further.

  It felt like it was going somewhere, the energy was solidifying slowly but surly, almost to a point of making something. But then there was nothing, it disperses with not even a sound, just nothing and it was starting to get frustrating. The elemental though, it was currently just watching, I asked it to help me figure out what to do, but they haven’t really done anything. Turning to them more closely to the elemental I just take a minute to observe the energy moving around it. Trying to figure out anything interesting that might be gleamed from my first monster, and what they could do.

  As I was watching I started to see something, a pulse of mana that held the elemental together. The energy flows from its center to its extremities, like small tethers holding the pieces of a puppet together. Every piece of the flow emanating and then returning through pathways that the monster seemed to naturally have. Looking at it, there was something I could see about it, something about it that felt very familiar like I should know it. Then it clicks with a pulse, and I couldn’t help but give the feeling of it to the elemental as well, because it’s like a heartbeat. A slow thunderous heartbeat that keeps the mana around and formed throughout the elemental’s body.

  It certainly told me quite a bit about the nature of the elemental and has me curious about what it might mean. That aside it also gives me some ideas since I can feel the energy in it turning from just a way to hold it together to something more. That might be a way for me to better understand how to make these cores that I am after, especially if one forms naturally near me. With that in mind I slowly put the idea to the side to focus on another experiment I wanna run since I have these destroyed bodies. If I can use my affinities to make something new from rock, why not bone and spirit and other such things.

  Focusing on the collection of skeletons I begin focusing on the least damaged ones, pulling two pairs of femurs and three humerus from two of the skeletons. Pulling the mandible from one of the skulls and discarding the shattered remnants of the rest of the skull. This deconstruction of the bodies continue until I am left with an assortment of bones from the destroyed skeletons. It is not the most balanced set, I was only really able to recover one skull and am missing most of the ribs off most of them. If I hadn’t picked up the ability for my skeletons to repair after defeated I would try and recycle this into a full skeleton again. But now I have room to get weird about it.

  I also have the bodies from that battlefield that the monsters brought back, along with some metal, not much but some. First thing I did with those was give my currently walking bodies with some weapons, three of them end up with maces, one with halberd which can only end well, and the last few with swords. However the more important looking body, the one that was brought wearing armor and death gripping a blade in rusted gauntlets. That one I had plans for, as I had the elemental bring him to the tombs and carefully replace the knight body with the random body I left in the tomb. The hardest part was arranging the skeleton properly without damaging the skeleton so as it looked he had been resting there for a long time and not forced into position.

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  As I finished putting him in place I felt something tug at my senses, words whispered at the edges of my mind.

  “make the cores, give me form.”

  I whip my view around the room, looking for the source of the sounds but there is nothing, the room is as empty as it should be. It feels odd, like there was something that should be there, that is trying to be there, but can’t because it is missing something. A shudder runs up my non existent form as I turn back to my little experimentation area to drive the feeling away. I don’t particularly like what that was but it felt like I needed far more then what I had to work with it if I ever wanted to. Back in the experimentation room I look at the remnants of skeletons I have to work with.

  I am very tempted to make a amalgamation monstrosity but I don’t know if that would fit with the theme I am working on. Maybe as a side area, special monster to fight, that could work considering I have some of that rotten wood still sitting around. A little boarded up section for my more monstrous skeletons to be sequestered away, maybe hide something back there. Though I don’t really have much to hide away considering my lack of any notable resources down here. Just me and the dead right now so there isn’t anything I can really give people if they come down here.

  Huh

  Wait

  Why do I want to give people things for invading me, that seems rather odd all things considered. Like leaving out some valuable items for a home invader so they would rather not kill you or something. But if you do that consistently they will just keep coming back and right now I don’t really understand why I would want them coming back so often. It just doesn’t feel right to me, but it also feels very right. It is really confusing right now and I kind of want to step back and take a moment to understand it. A little self reflection of the circumstances could certainly help me with why all of this is happening aswell.

  With that in mind I take a moment to pull back from the breakneck movement of creation and understanding and curiostiy. I instead move over to my core, that shard of crystal that seems to have grown ever so slightly while I worked. Looking at it I wonder if I can enter my consciousness into it to better understand it, look it over more deeply. Focusing on that thought it feels like my awareness has been slowly drawn tighter around it, from a wide ranging awareness all around me, to this sing point. The energy inside of the crystal swirls and dances within myself, the everything I am and the nothing I understand.

  It is slow.

  It is quick.

  It is oblivion.

  It is eternity.

  It wants to grow.

  I want to grow.

  Those who enter help me grow.

  Killing them makes it quick.

  Enticing them makes it slow.

  Both are important.

  But one keeps me safe.

  One is better.

  But I don’t know which is.