Sohow, by the ti I finally felt full, I had easily eaten five dozen eggs and a few loaves of bread worth of toast. I kept eating until I felt my core stabilizing with energy. It didn’t seem entirely full, but I finally felt like myself again. The exhaustion was entirely gone. The part I considered the strangest was that I didn’t even feel I had eaten too much. I certainly hadn’t been any sort of competitive eater prior to coming here, so where did I manage to fit all? Did so of it just get converted into energy for my core? Wait, how did refilling my core energy work? I should have read more on that as well.
“Hey guys, I can tell I’m refilling the energy in my core by eating, but it doesn’t seem to be doing it completely. What’s going on exactly?” I asked, not sure if they even had a full answer.
“So, other than so very special items and skills out there, your core won’t directly take any energy unless it cos from your soul. Only your soul can provide the right energy, and then your core turns it into mana when it releases it out into your internal channels. That part you likely knew.” I nodded at Elicec’s explanation so far. I had known the part about the Soul-Core energy reaction. “Well, when you nourish your body, you nourish your soul, which helps, in turn, speed up the recovery of core energy. Now, it’s unlikely you’ll ever be able to push it much above halfway full with food alone. Sleeping will help with the rest, and the bigger your core gets, the longer it can take to fill up entirely, but I wouldn’t worry about that. As long as you’ve got enough energy in there to supply your mana channels and your orbs, you should feel perfectly fine.”
“Guess that ans I need more core reserve then if I want to use more than one orb at a ti. I wonder if I have enough energy now to unlock another skill,” I said, then imdiately tried. Within seconds, I received the ssage that I had unlocked the Soul-Core Bonding skill, and I felt my stomach rumble hungry again. That seed to have taken about half of my current core energy or a fourth of the total. That was sothing I would need to start tracking.
“Did it work?” Cecile asked after my stomach had finished its noise.
“It did. I can now use two mana orbs, well, once I can use skills, at least. Now I need a few dozen more eggs, I think.” I picked a few more off the nu, digging in as they appeared in front of . After I finished my second breakfast, we t up with l for the promised monster hunt.
“So, ya boys are going ta like this. I found the dire scorpion that attacked ya. It’s been bothering so folks trying to set up an outpost in the desert. Now that ya know more about it, willing to try and tackle it?” l asked with a smile. I was sure l knew there was zero chance of them saying no.
“Absolutely!” Cecile yelled while Elicec nodded.
“Perfect, and this ti, ya get a much more reliable teammate. Transport is ready ta take y’all out there. Dave, make sure ya go through yer System ssages on the way, don’t skip anything. Ya got so travel ti, so ya should use it. Ya got a core now. Make sure ya understand everything about it, as that’s as much ya as yer brain is now,” l said. He was right. I did need to check through my System nu. At the very least, I had a quest complete, but it had to be more than that.
“I can’t believe I haven’t done it already. Honestly, thanks for everything, l,” I said.
“It was a rough day, happens ta a lot of people. Now get yer asses out there and take out a monster,” l ordered, and we obeyed.
“How do these things work anyway?” I asked once we were seated in the cabin of the transport. From the outside, it looked like a boat made out of a child’s blocks, one pyramid and one cube, with the pyramid pointing towards where the thing moved. The driver sat in the front pyramid while we sat in the back cube. It was comfortable seating, plenty of room and no real turbulence, but that added even more questions to how this was possible. Was magic actually able to decrease the turbulence on an aircraft, or had I just not been in one long enough to hit any?
“No idea, really. I an, I know the driver has a specialized class built for it, but neither of us were ever interested in any sort of driving or pilot life. It’s not a bad living, don’t get wrong, it’s one of the professions where you can skip the danger of the Arena, but you’re also never going to push yourself level-wise,” Elicec explained. It made sense that there would be plenty of non-combat-related builds out there for people. In fact, I would assu that was most librarians and that Elody was just an exception.
“Fair enough. I’ll probably look into it at so point. Alright, guys, I’m going to dive into my System changes, so I may be quiet for a while. Don’t be afraid to get my attention if it’s anything important, though,” I said before pulling up the interface and seeing if there were any changes. I now had an option for Core on the main nu that just told what I had already learned when I initially examined it, so likely useful once I upgraded it a bit, but for now, nothing special.
I moved onto my quest nu and selected the newly completed Esoteric Core Creation. I was rewarded with a thousand experience imdiately and instantly shot up to level thirty-one. So much for worrying about when I would hit level twenty-five. I had a lot more to do on this ride than I had expected. A new box popped up asking if I wanted to apply the System modification. I figured this was tied to my new strange core, so I selected yes. A small bit of pain shot through my head before a new ssage popped up saying that the upgrade was complete. What had that done exactly?
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Before checking the main nu I saw that I had another quest called “Can You Really Control Six Orbs at Once?” Which, point taken, I very much doubted I could. So far, in toggling the switches, it took about a second or two to swap them. There was no way I could switch orbs in the middle of a critical mont. That was sothing I needed to work on as well. The reward was another System modification and now was as good as any ti to see just what that ant.
I returned to the main screen and spotted the change. The option that had said core before now read “Core Integrated Circuit.” My design was a little simple, but I supposed it did fit the definition, especially if I ever did any future modifications. The subnu was just a diagram of my system, showing the ranks of each of my orbs, my core, and the affinity. So far, all my orbs were rank zero, which made sense as I hadn’t used a single skill from any of them yet.
My unexpected increase in my level ant that it was sothing I could look at as well. I finally had access to the skill nu. It was ti to see what all I could do.
Skills
Ranks
Cartography
1
Dungeon Simulation
1
Malacology
1
Reader (Speed)
5
Treasure Sense
1
Mana Skills
Ranks
Inner Vitality
1
Soul-Core Bonding
1
So I had the speed-reading skill after all. The description was exactly as I expected it to be. I could now read books faster, and every point applied to the skill increased my speed by ten percent. Cartography was what it sounded like: a map-making skill. I wasn’t sure how much I would invest there, but anything was possible.
The Dungeon Simulation was interesting. Apparently, I was now able to recreate any dungeon I had been in before and access it via any full System terminal. Further ranks of it would let control the dungeons in various ways. That was sothing I’d need to explore further when we returned. Treasure Sense sohow would help my eyes pinpoint things my team or I would consider valuable, each rank adding to how easily the items could be found.
It was interesting that it listed what I thought were spells as mana skills. Then again, maybe Inner Vitality was more of a skill than it was a spell. When I used the skill for the first ti, it just gave a generalized health report, similar to sothing you would get from a very basic physical. I would need to increase the ranks if I wanted more specific information, and I very much did.
I also had twelve points to spend on my skills. I had gained one per level up until level thirty and two on the next level. I decided to hold off on applying any until I could see just how Dungeon Simulation worked. I held off on my new attribute points for a similar reason. I had a feeling that applying so of my skill ranks might break through so caps, and the ones currently sitting at those were the ones I most wanted to increase.
A chiming sound brought out of my focus on my System interface. We had arrived. I hoped I was as ready as I thought I was to put this core to real use.
Once the Soul-Core reaction has begun, the need for food will rapidly increase; this is one of the reasons the Arena dining halls are always overflowing with food on the lower levels. The problem is, though, as your mana usage climbs, food won’t always be enough to keep up. Those who have moved into their first transcendence must begin to develop their own mana flows if they hope to push further, but that isn’t what you’re reading this cookbook for. Let’s start with one of my more favored dishes, spacial stew…
100 Recipes for Your Core by Jordan Hamsy
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