Somewhere far, far away, in a place filled with death, I, Alex, was slowly trudging through the so-called "Forest of Death", or whatever the hell this place was, and had somehow become the god of death for these fucking undead trees that lurked everywhere. I wasn't sure why I had started talking about myself in the third person, but hey, I was trying to keep myself entertained.
Honestly, I was getting bored. The steady trickle of XP I'd been riding high on had slowed to a sad little drip. My first day as a Tall-Neck had been great. I racked up nearly 700 XP without even trying to go out of my way to smash those Undead Treants. But then night hit. I left the Tall-Neck to do the walking on autopilot while I, being the smart dungeon core I am, went to sleep, as I needed my beauty sleep.
But, ever since I woke up, though? The flood of XP notifications had turned into a pathetic drizzle, maybe one or two every hour. And those only gave me like 6 to 20 XP each. Real buzzkill for me. I even thought of turning back, but I was like nah, I'm already this far, and I wanted to see something other than gray and black.
So, while I hopped back into the driver's seat, aka the Tall-Neck, my favorite little drone buzzed around, scanning the area for anything remotely interesting. That was the only order I gave it, after all. But, just like before, there was absolutely nothing of interest during the day.
Night, however, was a different story.
I decided to stay up for once, just to see what would happen when the moons came out. And honestly? It was beautiful. Two giant moons hung high above the sky, their light washing over the dead forest below, while a blanket of stars twinkled behind them. The larger moon was a familiar grayish color, almost identical to Earth's, while the second, smaller moon that followed close behind was a soft, glowing blue.
Probably because of no light pollution anywhere, I could finally see the night sky in all its true, breathtaking beauty. I practically burned this view into my mind because of how breathtaking it was. I had never seen anything like it before. Even during the camping trips I used to take with my father out in the wild, the night sky was never this clear. Not even close. Especially with the eyes of the Tall-Neck, it made everything so clear.
I stopped moving for a full hour, just admiring the galaxies and stars above. I could even see the outlines of four planets from where I was standing, each one casting a faint hue across the sky, one blue, one red, one green, and the last a soft white.
But as I kept staring up at the sky, completely lost in its beauty, I was snapped out of my trance when I felt something bump into my leg. Snapping my focus downward, I spotted several Undead Treants wandering around aimlessly, with one of them actually trying to climb up my leg.
Of course, I was spooked. Who the hell would be okay with a nasty little dead tree crawling up their leg? Not me, that's for damn sure. I jumped slightly but managed to calm myself down, then shook the little bastard off. After a bit of fumbling, I used one of my other legs to kick the little shit as far away as I could, then immediately ordered a drone strike on the ugly bastard.
Watching my favorite little drone full-send three rockets into a single Undead Treant, about the size of a small tree, and completely obliterate it, I couldn't help but grin. I glanced at the other Undead Treants nearby and saw them all immediately rush toward the sound of the explosions, ignoring me completely, even though I was massive and stuck out like a sore thumb.
Some even bumped into my legs, but they just stumbled aside and kept running toward the noise, growling and roaring with their thin, stump-like legs carrying them along.
[mmmh] I didn't move a single muscle, even when they slammed into me, but as I watched how they reacted to their environment, an idea started to form in my mind. I even kicked one of them, knocking it onto its side. Other than swiping its branchy claws at me a few times, completely missing me and swiping air, it didn't even stay focused on me, its attention snapped right back to the growing horde rushing toward the explosion.
[Hey Alexa, do you have any sort of information about this world? Maybe something about the creatures here?] I asked, hoping the system could at least confirm my theory about the Undead Treants. But, alas, disappointment hit me.
(Sadly, no. The system came with no knowledge of the world. I only have access to information regarding the system's current features and functions.) Alexa replied in her calm voice. But it was the last part of her sentence that caught my attention and sparked a bit of curiosity in me.
[Ok then. Explain to me what the [Summon] tab does?] Honestly, I didn't have many questions in my mind. Most of the tabs I had were pretty self-explanatory, but the [Summon] tab was still a bit vague to me.
(The [Summons] feature functions similarly to the [Inventory] tab. However, all of your summons will be listed here instead, making it more organized and easier to access any of your summonsin the future. This tab also provides you with detailed descriptions that includes their stats, equipment, and background.)
[I guess that'll be useful in the future,] I thought to myself. It was pretty convenient knowing exactly what a summon could do, especially if I got someone or something I'd never seen before. So, yeah. Pretty neat.
After that, I threw a few more random questions Alexa's way, like what some of the strongest beings I could summon in the future, and a couple of things about the [Shop]. But once that curiosity ran dry, I figured it was as good a time as any to call it a night.
There wasn't much else to do anyway. I'd think of more questions in the morning. So, ignoring the growing mass of Undead Treants gathering nearby, I exited the Tall-Neck's body and managed to wedge myself back into my usual sleeping spot, right on top of its head. Using a bit of mana, I carefully formed a thin blue tendril to help nudge myself into a small crevice. It literally took me several minutes to stabilize the damn tendril, but eventually, I was nestled in and mentally shut my eyes.
Before I knew it, I was back in that endless white void again. But this time, something new floated nearby, a small, gooey black ball, roughly the size of a basketball. It drifted lazily through the air. Curious, I gave it a light smack, and it jiggled like jello for a few seconds before settling again. After watching it a bit longer, I realized what it was.
It was dark mana, the mana I'd absorbed from those Undead Treant cores to be exact. And I spent some time messing around with it, trying to figure out what I could do. But honestly, I didn't get far. The stuff was a lot harder to manipulate than my usual mana. Even trying to reshape it was a struggle; at best, I could get it to wobble or slightly flatten, but that was it.
Eventually, curiosity got the better of me. I decided to see what would happen if I mixed it with my own… elementless mana. Maybe something cool would happen. Or maybe it would explode in my face. Either way, I wanted to know.
So, I mentally grabbed the dark mana ball floating to my left and forming an identical-sized ball of my regular, elementless mana to my right. Then, without overthinking it, I slowly pushed the two together and mashed them into one.
As the two mana balls began to mix, I felt a weak pressure pulse through my mind, which was weird, considering I was technically just a soul right now. Still, I pressed on. I focused my intent, pushing the dark mana to overpower the elementless mana. I wanted the darkness to consume, just to see what would happen.
(
I ignored the notification for now. The fusion wasn't done yet. Bits of pale blue still flickered and pulsed inside the dark sphere, stubbornly refusing to vanish. But the dark mana was growing. Slowly but surely, it was devouring the elementless mana, and I forced them together with more intent, more pressure.
After a minute or two of mental wrestling, the two finally merged. The result floated before me, a single, larger orb of pure dark mana. No more blue. Just pulsing now as it had a bit more power.
Satisfied with the results of my little experiment, I opened my status screen to check out the description of this new skill: [Mana Shift].
—
Name - Alex Whitlock
Species - Dungeon core
level - 1 (853/1000)
SP - 200
—
[ABILITIES]
Body takeover - Any that was made in your dudgeon or summoned by the system can be taken over by you. Anything foreign that enters your dudgeon can't be controlled. Energy usage depends on creature strength. (2-yard range)
Telepathy - Able to send simple thoughts to others. (5-yard range) (Unlimited range for summon and able to send any sort of information)
Thermal Vision - Allows the user to perceive heat signatures, making it possible to track living beings or detect warm objects
Mana Manipulation - Basic proficiency in mana control, though the manipulation is crude and very wasteful.
Energy Transformation - Slowly transform your energy into other elements or types (catalyst needed to work)
Mana Shift - Capable of manual and gradual transformation of pure mana, adapting it to different elemental properties based on the elements used.
[PASSIVES]
Cooking - Gain the basic instinct of cooking.
Omnidirectional view - Able to see in any direction as a dungeon core
—
[Map]
[Shop]
[Inventory]
[Quests]
[Token Wheel]
[Summons]
lv 1 - MQ-27-Dragon-Fire
lv 1 - Tall-Neck
—
As I read through the description, I gathered more of my elementless mana and began forming a thin stream, about as fine as a strand of hair, directing it straight into the dark mana orb. I even moved the orb closer to the ocean of mana below me, figuring that if I could keep feeding it, I'd eventually build up a bigger reserve of dark mana. You never know when you might need some dark magic on standby.
I spent several actual hours carefully maintaining that fragile little stream, trying to keep it flowing steadily into the dark mana. But the moment I lost focus, even for a second, the stream snapped, instantly dissipating. With the dark mana just floating back up like nothing happened.
Ughh. I really needed to level up my [Mana Manipulation] or something, because I was absolute trash at it. But before I could get back into it, my vision changedm and not gradually. One second I was in the white void, and the next, I wasn't.
Before I could even process what had just happened, several explosions rocked the air, and a sudden notification gave me the biggest fright yet.
(
[What the fu–] I couldn't even finish my thought before I saw several thick chains whip through the air above me, followed by three white magic circles forming directly overhead, stacked on top of each other.
As I tried to mentally process what I was seeing, gravity betrayed me. I felt myself falling.
Out of pure instinct, I used [Body Takeover] to snap back into the Tall-Neck, only for things to get way worse. The moment I did, I felt something tightening around my massive body. Heavy chains wrapped themselves around my legs and neck, yanking me down and locking me in place. With part of head getting buried into dirt below.
—
Thanks for reading, comment on any mistakes or changes i should make