The next twelve hours went by in a blur.

  Rhamiel spent his time working with his Drones deep in the caverns, working towards mining out the Basalt. The Core found himself focused on the task at hand, remembering that he could gain access to ‘Outer Divine Magic’ when the building was completed. And, much like every other time he observed his Drones working, he found the time flying by, hours passing in minutes.

  He even spent some time deciding on where to place the Eldritch Cathedral and setting up his fifteen Drones in a loop between Mining, shaping the Basalt, and putting it in place. It needed to find out the types of stone in greater amounts, but the Basalt was the only one that had not been found yet.

  Rhamiel even used his three new open Drone Slots to summon three Mining Drones.

  And these ones were notably different than the others. Instead of appearing like ephemeral lights or wisps of flame, this one emerged as a fractal mirror reflecting and glittering in the torchlight down here. All three miners worked much like the others, summoning tools to do their job; only these ones summoned tools formed of that same reflective energy.

  The Core worked with its drones, highlighting the areas that it wanted to mine with a new type of wireframe vision. Using it, he ensured the tunnel was supported by the beams that he had built and set up while the others mined in a near-perpetual cycle. He needed that Basalt to keep everything moving forward.

  While a large percentage of his Drones were working on this process, others were mining in another part of the Mine. We were hoping to unearth metals to work on other buildings, but he doubted that he would find it blindly. But it was better to keep it moving either way. Additionally, he required stones to be processed into bricks for use in other buildings, including the new Inquiry Hall.

  Also, a few hours in, he was reminded of another project that needed attention. Luckily, to advance to a Rank One Settlement, he needed a road, and gravel would work for that, so he separated the cast-off pieces that qualified as gravel and stored them.

  Having three projects at once was a satisfying feeling.

  “Hey, Lord Rhamiel, can you hear me?” called a voice piercing through the shield of focus.

  The Core took a moment to find the source of the voice and found Lamar calling out to him next to his Core Generator. He yawned while Rhamiel shifted his perspective towards the man, and it seemed like he had just woken up.

  “Hello, Lamar, how can I help you? What’s going on?”

  “Oh, there you are, Lord Rhamiel,” Lamar confirmed with a sigh. “I was getting very concerned when you weren’t responding. I have been trying to speak to you since last night.”

  “Did you?” Rhamiel asked, confused. “Oh, well, sorry about that. I’m here now, so…”

  “So, I have a few things for you. Firstly, I got the gold you requested to upgrade your Core Generator,” Lamar said, extending a small bag in his hand and opening it to reveal the coins. Lamar smiled as he looked at the Core Generator, patting the device. “and second, I have a question for you before you upgrade it.”

  “What?” Rhamiel asked, looking at the shiny yellow coins.

  “I was hoping you would allow me to deconstruct the original Core Generator,” Lamar looked at it with a greedy glint in his eye. He traced the sharp edges of the device with his fingers, and a grin spread across his face.

  “Why would you- oh, yeah, that's right,” Rhamiel said, realizing why the man looked really crazy. “You have that Skill, right? The Reverse Engineering skill?”

  “Indeed, I do. You have an excellent memory, Lord Rhamiel,” Lamar praised. “Please, may I disassemble your original Core Generator? If you let me-”

  “Yes, you can,” Rhamiel agreed.

  “Take apart the Core Generator, I can learn a little more about how this kind of thing works. And if I do that, I may be able to develop other pieces of artifice with similar mechanics. If you please… wait, did you just agree?”

  “Yes,” Rhamiel confirmed. “I think I can build another one from scratch right at Tier One. No, I know I can. So, go ahead, enjoy yourself, have a good time, and please tell me if you discover anything useful.”

  “Oh, uh, anything in particular you are interested in learning?” Lamar asked.\

  Rhamiel thought about it for a long moment. He could think of several things he needed, and Lamar could come up with something for each of them. But there was one thing he wanted more than anything.

  “I need something, anything to act as a defense,” Rhamiel said, remembering that vision he had gotten that made him choose to be a Civilization Core. The beams of light shooting from those towers were potent, and he could see, in theory, that his Core Generator could act as a first step toward it.

  Lamar paused, a little unsure about how to respond. “Oh, uh, okay, Lord Rhamiel. I admit, I was not expecting you to say that. I will see what I do.”

  “Excellent. Can I let you know when you can take it apart?” Rhamiel asked, then continued after Lamar looked confused. “This Core Generator is being used to continuously power the Architects Library. I need it to charge as much as possible, so I would like to overlap the power instead of leaving a gap where it isn’t charging. Does that make sense?”

  “Oh,” Lamar nodded. “Oh, yeah, sure. Just let me know.” She said, still seeming a bit disappointed but mollified. He left the gold coins on the ground next to the Core Generator. He walked back to his table, returning to what Rhamiel assumed was another project.

  Determined not to make him wait long, Rhamiel took one Basic Drone off from the Cathedral’s construction to move the bag of gold to where he decided to place the new Tier 1 Core Generator.

  He had the Drone drop the gold on the ground a few feet away from the location of his current lower-tier generator. Summoning the Wireframe, Rhamiel placed the larger Demi-structure over the gold coins and watched as the coins were subsumed into the Structure. Mana filled in the loose Structure at a surprising rate, allowing Rhamiel to watch it grow in real-time as the building expanded. The process would still take hours to build, but he assumed the speed was due to the increase in his Core Presence Attribute.

  Either way, he returned to the Mine below and returned to work, continuing to build the support structures as the Drones kept mining. Eventually, Miners came down to observe the work, and even Karrow seemed surprised by their speed. Several more hours later, Rhamiel hit the quota of Basalt he needed and continued mining the surrounding areas to gather more processed materials for use.

  And then, around twenty-four hours after he began, he received a prompt.

  “Such a simple description for a useful building,” Rhamiel said to nobody. Looking over the Tier One version of the Structure, he found that it wasn’t really a structure. The only parts of the Structure built were the floor, which is made of dark gray stone, and a path of Basalt down the middle. At the farther end of the flat stone brick floor were nine plinths with paths of the freshly mined Basalt leading to and surrounding them. All around the outside of the fresh floor were pillars made of the same gray stone, but only going about fifteen feet high.

  While he admired the work, Rhamiel ordered a Drone to bring him the one item he had obtained that would likely work as a casting Catalyst.

  But before he got tunnel vision again, Rhamiel put his new Attribute Points to work.

  Looking over his current attributes, he saw;

  He thought about it for a moment, and honestly, this was a simple concept. He immediately invested one point in Core Strength to continue working towards acquiring new Drones. He put one point into Core Presence to increase the speed of his automatic Core Crafting and the other into Core Mana Recovery to keep the regeneration speed as high as possible.

  Mainly because he was funneling two points an hour into expanding his Domain; his Structured Mindset Skill kept that going even though he had not even thought about that function for a while.

  Now, his attributes are as follows.

  There we go, Rhamiel told himself; every bit helps.

  As his Drone approached, it was followed by Hutch and a few other people following. They looked around the new property, which barely resembled a building, and the Drone placed the Catalyst upon the Plinth.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  A few seconds after the Holy Symbol was placed, a symbol appeared on the front of the pedestal. Rhamiel focused on the symbol and found it peculiar; it was two-dimensional and profoundly deep. A symbol on the surface but also a container for something else.

  Almost immediately, Hutch went down on his knees, clasped his hands together, and began a muttering prayer to Order.

  And even as he watched, through his Domain, he could feel Divine power being created. It was strangely beautiful; the power seemed to appear out of nowhere and flowing free from the builder’s heart. That energy flowed into the container within the symbol, and he felt the power for his use rise by a few points.

  “Fascinating,” Rhamiel whispered, observing the characteristics of the energy. It was not like the neutral Mana within his Domain or even the elemental Mana that he had seen some use. This was rigid, straightforward, simple, and seemingly unbreakable. A type of power that did not have any real comparison to anything he could reference.

  Even using his Aspected Analysis, Perk only revealed one thing.

  Moreover, Rhamiel found himself wanting more of this power, as did the others. He hoped that this would lead him to new discoveries, new understandings of magic, and perhaps even new applications for this magic besides offensive spells.

  Thinking of that, Rhamiel looked at his available spells, a new menu that had arrived; he saw only two options, with more blacked out with question marks redacting the information.

  “Well, that is interesting,” Rhamiel said to himself, looking at the spells with glee. Especially the Fractal Shear spell. Finally, he had something offensive that he could use to defend his Domain. Sure, it had some weaknesses, primarily its range, but that was less of a problem than he initially thought.

  The wall was considered a structure, so in theory, he could now assist with defending the wall when it gets attacked again. The thought eased a little of his stress; now, he could actually help in battle.

  However, it was best not to relax; there was still a lot more to do.

  Turning his attention to the Magic expert in Settlement, he found Mom making her way up to the Eldritch Cathedral with the crowd. Dad was ahead of her, and she was making her way there herself, a book in hand and a smile on her face.

  “Hey, Mom, I have some questions!”

  “Wha-!” she shouted, looking around in a panic. “Ah, Rhami, you have got to stop doing that, Dear. You startled me.”

  “Apparently,” He said with a bit of mirth. “So, questions?”

  She looked towards the Eldritch Cathedral and returned to walking to it. “Of course, I would love to help. What is it, dear?”

  “I finally have magic,” Rhamiel proclaimed. “I was hoping you could tell me if these are any good,” he said and called up the spell descriptions, passing them to Mom.

  She looked them over and furrowed her brows in concentration for a few long seconds. Pausing her stride again, her eyes widened before she raised them in an expression that Rhamiel was unsure how to translate. Looking up, she looked around to make sure that no one could hear her and moved out of the path where a few other people could listen to.

  “These are Tier One spells? I’m not misreading this?” she confirmed in a hurry.

  “Yes, pretty sure,” Rhamiel confirmed. “That's what it said for me, too, at least.”

  Nodding, Mom continued. “For Tier One spells, these are rather powerful. Fractal Shear can pass through nonmagical defenses and deal magic and ordered damage. That is already impressive, but add in the Fractal Trauma Debuff, and it becomes even more so. I mean, these spells are derived from Order itself, but this is scarier than I thought.”

  Rhamiel did not even look up the Fractal Shear debuff.

  Also, while he was at it, he looked up the buff in the other Spell.

  “I mean, these would probably be Tier three spells for us, at least,” Mom mused, looking over them. “Fractal Shear would probably be Tier Four with that debuff. It looks like you got something hazardous.”

  Rhamiel considered it fortunate that he received Lyer's Holy Symbol of Order, which granted him that Spell. Since it was a gift given to him by a Perk, he wondered if it was really luck or if he was playing some kind of cosmic game. Or more of one, given what he knew from the System Admin.

  Returning his attention to Mom, he said, “Thank you, I thought they looked good, but these are my first spells, and it's hard to say if they are good or bad when you have nothing to compare them to.”

  “There are no bad spells,” Mom instructed. “Only people who can’t utilize them properly or they have not found the intended purpose.”

  “Really?” Rhamiel said with surprise. “I would think that there would be some useless spells. Like, what about one that just creates a disgusting smell?”

  “Uh,” she thought, turning the question around in her head. “Then you could use it to disguise your own scent or distract an attacker or make someone want to vomit if they have a weak stomach.” Mom said, smiling as if she won a point. “I repeat, there are no useless spells, just ones that we may not know how to utilize properly.”

  Rhamiel hummed in agreement. “Fair enough,” he said, not completely sold on that idea, but he understood her reasoning. Not that he had that problem with either of these spells; these were very useful. He did not have anywhere near the amount of Mana needed to cast these spells yet. Still, it was only a matter of time before he was a judge of the few prayers it had received while he wasn’t paying attention.

  And then, when Rhamiel had decided to continue the mining operation, he received another prompt.

  He turned his attention back towards the Cathedral and found Graham Tully taking a step away from the pedestal. The item placed upon it was a still-beating heart wrapped in thin strands that were hard to see but reflected the light peculiarly. Much like the Holy Symbol of Order, the item floated in the air above the pedestal, but the thin strands bound it to the pedestal. Even more disturbing was the fact that the item still dripped a near-black ichor that disappeared into the pedestal below it.

  “Uh, Graham, what is that?”

  The Holy Fist just clenched his fists, “A Madness Spell Catalyst, what, don’t you want it?”

  “No, no, no, I want it,” Rhamiel affirmed quickly. “It's just kind of freaky.”

  Sighing, he shrugged, “I don’t know what you expect; most artifacts or items of Madness are kind of like this. What do you think? Is it helpful?”

  “I mean, yes, I just wasn’t expecting it,” Rhamiel told him happily. “But I have to ask, where did you get it? Did you already have it?”

  “No, I made it and was going to use it as a new Catalyst for my own spells. But it needed to be Tier Three to actually be good for me,” he looked at the Bound Heart on the pedestal and shook his head. “Too bad, I had hope for that thing, heart.”

  “That thing here- Wait, you mean that came from the Werejackal Boss?” Rhamiel asked, incredulously at the idea.

  Graham nodded.

  “Oh,” Rhamiel said lamely. He admitted to himself that he had lost track of the Boss's body after the fact, immediately losing himself to his work and annoyance that he had been forgotten after the battle.

  “Did anyone see you, uh, carve out this thing heart and do… whatever you did to it?” Rhamiel asked. The Core already had a bleak opinion of biology as a whole. Still, he could imagine that it would not have been a pretty sight.

  “Only Elgeia and she just quickly hurried off after I started pulling apart its ribs with my bare hands,” he explained. “Why?”

  “No reason,” Rhamiel said quickly. “Thank you for the Catalyst; you really did not have to do that, Graham.”

  “Eh, felt like it, and no one else here can use Madness Spells except me,” He glared at the Catalyst. “And monsters with a Madness affinity don’t just sprout off a farm, so I had to make use of the ingredients I had.”

  “Is that how you make items for the Outer Gods?” Rhamiel asked, remembering the Artifact Dagger that Joselin carried. The Souls Rebirth was made from a Giant Lens from an eyeball.

  “You can; this is not exclusive to Madness. But it's less common with the rest of them. But the thing is that you can only create items from beasts into items that share their affinities.”

  “Oh, I get it. But could you create one with a second Affinity combined with an Outer God? Like Destiny and Wisdom?” Rhamiel questioned.

  “Technically,” Graham answered. “The two items would have to be nearly identical in many respects. Material, Tier Strength, relative strength of the beast, and anything else you could think of. Otherwise, one would overpower and taint the other.”

  “Okay, thank you, Graham,” Rhamiel told him. “I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

  “Eh,” the man grumbled before giving the Madness Plinth a quick prayer. Rhamiel did not hear him say anything, but he observed the power generate and move into its place. It appeared that the Holy Fist’s Prayer was worth several times the amount of the others. Maybe it had to do with the fact he was ‘Holy’?

  Either way, that's two of the nine Plinths filled, and with Mana in the Madness one, it revealed one of the spells.

  “Oh, that's useful,” Rhamiel hummed as he turned his attention back to the mining operation. From what he could tell, it would be some time before he could cast any of those spells; the magic they took was expensive, way more than anything he had to cast previously. Which was just to summon his Drones.

  With the construction complete, he set his Drones to begin creating a road using the gravel he made. It would stretch from the Eldritch Cathedral to the living areas of the Settlement. It would be enough to fulfill one of the requirements to grow and become a Tier One Settlement.

  Falling into a steady rhythm, Rhamiel worked with his Drones. Digging down as he learned from Karrow and speaking with the man as to how he should begin angling the tunnel down to dig deeper. According to one of the Miners with the Surveyor Skill, there was ore further down, but it would take time to get there.

  Not on Rhamiel’s watch.

  While he worked, there was a burst of Mana within the upper portion of his Domain strong enough to pull him out of his work.

  Looking, he found a strange sight. A bird was angled down and diving towards the Mana Generator that held his Core. Weirder yet was that the Bird looked not to be made of flesh but of paper like those of the books many carried here.

  Genuinely nervous, Rhamiel wished any of the spells he had just gained were ready for use. None of them had enough Mana yet to use, and None of the Corinths were close enough to stop it with their ranged attacks.

  Braced, Rhamiel waited and watched. With relief, the Bird pulled up and stopped before the Mana Generator. It fell to the ground, unfolding into a single large piece of paper with a single line of script on the page.

  ‘Prepare for yourself, Core. The Hero of Fallen Udarov comes to destroy you and conquer your depths.