Razeal narrowed his eyes.
There it was again that weird strange pull.
An intoxicating allure faint but persistent, crawling under his skin like static. It ca from the hound's corpse. An aching pull twisted in his chest, urging him forward, toward the hound's corpse.
He stepped closer, slowly, his boots making faint crunching noises on the grassy ground. The scent of burned fur and coppery blood lingered thick in the air. His gaze never left the hound's bloody body.
Then, with practiced precision, Razeal crouched beside the body and pressed the blade back into the ruined chest deeper this ti. He carved through muscle and bone without hesitation, cutting toward the center of that strange resonance humming at the edge of his perception.
A soft click.
And then, embedded deep within the remains, he found it.
Found it.
His fingers reached inside, curling around sothing smooth, cold... pulsating faintly like a dying heart.
He pulled it out.
A core.
Pitch black, perfectly spherical, about the size of a marble. Dark violet threads coiled within it like veins of lightning, swirling with malevolent energy that felt more alive than inert.
Also just holding core it was giving him weird sensation. It felt cold at first... but that wasn't all. There was a deep, pulsing resonance spreading through his palm and traveling up his arm. He could feel it not on the surface, but inside himself. Deeply. Like two threads of the sa origin had just connected.
He frowned.
Staring at it.
A monster core.
"...Strange," he muttered, frowning trying to make scense what is happening.
In the novel, he rembered clearly monsters actually contained two cores. One was the elental core, located where their heart should be. The other was the monster core, buried deeper, at the center of their chest.
Only the elental core had value. As for the monster core? It was considered utterly useless. As if the world itself rejected it. As if it didn't belong.
It was known as the waste product in this world.
Monster cores were described as crystallized concentrations of a monster's life essence. A chaotic blend of instinct, hatred, and wild energy nothing stable, nothing usable. Always dark in color. Black, murky crimson, or sotis a deep, sickly violet. Often with strange swirling red or purple threads running through them.
They ford naturally in magical beasts, usually right in the center of their chest. But even with how important they were to the beasts themselves this world had no use for them.
And yet, they were crucial to monsters. These cores weren't just a weakness they were also a strength. Monsters could consu them to evolve to the next rank. They could absorb them and gain the characteristics or traits of the beast the core ca from. It was one of the secrets to how monsters grew stronger over ti revealed in mid last of novel.
But for humans?
No for nearly all other creatures?
They were worthless.
Why?
So many reasons.
Incompatibility with the natural system of this world, for one. No one not scholars, Researchers, Or even divine healers could determine what kind of energy existed inside these cores. It was unstable. Wild. Completely non-mana. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't even detect a trace of identifiable mana or if it even was that.
Attempts to extract that energy failed.
Attempts to refine it failed.
Attempts to study it in depth?
Often ended in disaster.
The cores were volatile. Mishandling them during experints could cause them to explode. Sotis catastrophically. Because of this, most people avoided them entirely. It wasn't worth the risk.
But if a high-ranking core was found, it was sotis hidden or locked away. Not because anyone could use it but because if another monster ate it, they might gain a huge boost in strength. Or worse, trigger a rank evolution. If it didn't explode that is.
They were strange. Dangerous. Unpredictable objects.
Maybe they weren't truly useless.
Maybe the people of this world just lacked the thods.
With no institutional knowledge, no refining techniques, and no recognized ways to repurpose them, most researchers had already given up. To them, monster cores were anomalies. Not resources or weapons. Just cursed relics of unstable magic.
More like how people started to see rocks on side of pathways.
But as Razeal looked down at the core in his hand...
He felt different.
The resonance the way it pulsed and vibrated faintly he could feel it echoing with sothing inside him. Sothing that shouldn't be possible. It wasn't just humming. It was calling to him.
For a mont, Razeal could swear he felt warmth spreading through his veins from the core. As if it was beneficial. As if his dark genius, his cursed talent, was resonating with it. Whispering that it belonged to him. That it could be used by him.
That it was ant for him.
"System... bother explaining what is happening?" he asked, his voice low, eyes still fixed on the strange stone in his hand. "Even in the whole novel plot, these monster cores were never brought to use."
[I didn't have any idea either, Host,] the system admitted. [But after deep analysis all this ti you holded that core, I've co to a conclusion and it's pretty surprising, actually. This core contains dark mana. Mana that is entirely unaffiliated with the White Faction's spectrum which ans... it's a dark faction item.]
"Really...?" Razeal's eyes flickered, a faint spark passing through them.
"But didn't you confirm that in this world, there's nothing of the dark faction I can use? You said this world is completely aligned with the white faction. Wasn't that the reason I could never absorb mana, never use aura... not even progress in swordsmanship?"
[Yes, Host, I did say that. But you should rember sothing important.]
---
Writing a fantasy world is exhausting I won't lie.
With every Chapter and location, I find myself stuck, thinking: Damn, I have to pay attention to this tiny detail too?
Every little thing needs to connect with future plotlines. It can't just go off-track and beco nonsense.
Honestly, I have tons of ideas I want to explore, but the real challenge is keeping everything balanced. Even the smallest detail needs to be planned out so it ties into what's coming next.
And hey thank you all so much for reading.
I'm not asking for much, but if you're enjoying the story, please consider sending so Power Stones or Golden Tickets. Those rankings are literally what keep authors going.
We start our day just staring at the screen, hoping for a notification hoping we've climbed up the ranks.
Sigh...Took four or maybe five hours to prepare this whole concept (this Chapter and next one) Even tho was in my head but gotta put in words is hard.
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