I focused on the wall and made the stone become porous. Without a ‘bubble’ like the entrance had, the dense Essence in the cave poured into the wall like water through a sieve.
“Make sure to put curves, or sharp turns in that are hard to see past.” Dani suggested.
<On it.> I already had the basic shape I wanted in mind, but sooner than I wanted, the air had become less dense. The concentrated Essence in the room had decreased through this forced osmosis, until I had to push very hard to continue to move it forward. Finally, the Essence had reached an equilibrium that I could not continue bringing pressure to bear upon. Nearly drained, I stopped, and began to sip on the power released by my lush garden. Since I had created them, even the shroomish gladly put forth their energy for me to use. Feeling myself stabilize a bit more, I looked at the patch on the wall that glowed to my senses.
I hadn’t been able to move the stone, but nearly one hundred and fifty feet of rock was now under my influence, my direct control. My mind easily followed the path, and I found some very interesting things I had ignored in my haste. I found a material that revealed itself as polycrystalline tungsten. It is an intrinsically brittle and hard material, and extraordinarily dense. Farther along I found an iron ore vein, and even anthracite! Anthracite is a rare form of coal that burns hotter and longer than normal coal, and is a beautiful black color with a high sheen. I told Dani about these, and she got very excited about the possibility of having metal to tempt adventurers and miners with when they started showing up.
This is also when Dani told how I could create more than just monsters. With the same process as creating them, I could create seeds of other materials, like metals and stone. This way, I could inhibit mining to a small section of myself so people didn’t poke around where I didn’t want them. Apparently when people were mining it could really grate on my nerves. She suggested that when we made a place for the mining, we stick to low grade materials, especially at first.
“We don’t want to bring in people that are too strong, too soon. Although dungeon Cores are supposed to be a well-kept secret, high ranked groups may know about you. You are a needed component in some of the highest powered spells, so if they find you they will want to take you. If you leave the dungeon, your body, it will die. Even if you somehow escape, you will need to rebuild from scratch.” Dani warned, “Which is also why you cannot cut yourself off from your body, you can’t just burrow down and cover yourself in stone to hide, unless you have no other option.”
I reluctantly acknowledged her logic. <Makes sense, I guess.>
She seemed happy that I was listening to her. “Now, why didn’t you move any of the stone? Was it really hard for you to let your Essence flow into the stone?”
I thought about my answer. <Not particularly, I just wanted to get the most influence possible, so I pushed it as far as I could, you see. I had to stop when I ran low on Essence, because I don’t like to worry you.>
“Oh.” She flushed a bit, “Well, there was a lot of Essence in here, how far did you get?”
I tried to calculate the exact distance, I had just thought about it a moment ago, how long was it? <You know that I am terrible with distances. It felt like a really long way though. More than a hundred feet for sure.>
“Well considering it took you a few weeks to run low on Essence when you were pushing it, I’d be surprised if you didn’t make it a really long way. I’m trying hard not to be surprised by you anymore.” She glowed cheerfully.
<A few weeks? Wow, I really do lose track of time. Hope you weren't too bored.>
“You will get faster with practice.” She responded flippantly. “I remember Kantor could change the entire layout of himself in a single night if he tried really hard. And he is a flying island so you know that has to be difficult.”
<Wow! How did he learn how to fly?> I wanted to fly. That sounded amazing.
“Well, over time a lot of really powerful dungeon divers died or lost gear that had strong enchantments, and he learned how to make them. He made huge Mana accumulator stones that he can fill, or they fill themselves maybe? Anyway, those stones power the enchantments, and he flies with that magic!” Dani elaborated, excited to have his full attention. “He also is always trying to help new dungeons grow so he can relax every once in a while. So long as you aren’t a black or white stone, of course.”
<Why those color stones? Is that why he helped me? So people would attack me and not him for a while?> I started to get a bit heated. Was I just a way to divert attention? I don’t want to be used like that!
“Remember how he asked you what color you were? If you were a black or white stone, he probably would have killed you. Before you ask, that means that they can only absorb energy from celestial or infernal energy. He doesn’t dislike them, but they have no way to ever grow without horrible things being done around them.” Dani stopped my attempted interruption, going into full lecturing mode.
“They both, celestial and infernal Cores that is, have ways to influence sentient beings to get them food, but what usually ends up happening is a war where Demons are summoned and Angels are counter-summoned to fight them. The stone can get really powerful with thousands of people dying around them, jumping from G rank to A in just a few days if it is smart, but usually crusades are declared to destroy them. It is really a lot of bother for everyone, so Kantor usually just kills them.” She explained.
<That is nice of him, I guess.> I admitted reluctantly. Then I remembered the point of this conversation. <Will you teach me how to fly someday? It would be fun.>
“It’s really just floating, he has to go where the wind takes him.” She attempted to dissuade me, noticing my interest in the idea.
<Even still, I’d like to someday.> I demanded, to which she nodded and tried to distract me.
“That’s a really long way away, let’s focus on building your body up shall we? The dungeon that is. I am going to go look for plants outside that help to increase Essence, or really any plants with a lot of different properties.”
<Isn’t that dangerous?> I nudged her nervously. <What if someone attacks you?>
“Well it is almost noon, so I should be nearly invisible in the sunlight. Thank you for being concerned about me, cutie.” Dani flirtatiously flew a few spirals around me. “Don’t worry, I’ll be right back.” After ensuring I wouldn’t be too nervous, she flew out and away.
~Four~
Alone for the first time in months, my cave was totally silent. Well, I could hear the plants slowly growing, but that was pretty quiet, if annoying. I figured that I may as well try and cultivate some Essence, so I gently connected to all of my plants and let their energy flow to me, and connected to my newly energized tunnel and started pulling, then pushing hard. I quickly realized several things, firstly the tungsten and iron had much more Essence to give me than regular rocks, and secondly that anthracite had a colossal amount of Essence to give, but crumbled as soon as it gave it away.
Receiving the pattern as I absorbed its Essence showed me why the anthracite fell apart: coal was made from decomposed organic matter! It was made from compressed plant Essence, and didn’t really have its own form. When I pulled the energy, there was nowhere for it to regain the lost Essence and it would fall apart. On the positive side, it was absolutely stuffed with Essence and I was soon draining the anthracite exclusively. I had found what I assume was a relatively small vein of the dark material, but by the time I finished off the last bit of it I was ninety percent full, something that would have taken months to achieve with just my trivial garden.