The Core's Origin

The core watched the humans in fascination, delighted at its first “crop” of people. No one had died, which was ideal in order to lure in more humans, and they had been richly rewarded for their efforts, at least according to the core’s understanding. Despite its access to some of Avery’s memories, the idea of wealth and valuables was still a bit fuzzy to the core.

Treasure was easily understood, but who would ever willingly part with their hoard?

As time had passed and the core had spent time considering how to lure the humans into its realm, and also revisited many of the memories, it had realized that humans had completely foreign priorities. Much like the beasts that belonged to the core, humans first required food and water. Without those, nothing else really mattered, and only after those matters were settled could humans or beasts focus on anything else.

For beasts, that implied reproduction or rest, but for humans, their desires were far more diverse and unusual. While the core could not directly understand the desire for reproduction, it was a goal that at least made sense to the core.

Desiring things such as art, music, tastier food, and finer clothes all struck the core as rather… odd.

After all, what benefit did such things offer? From what it had seen in Avery’s memories, finer clothes did not seem to help a human acquire a better mate or chances of survival, yet many humans seemed to crave better clothes. It was just too strange.

Regardless, the core at least had come to clearly understand that humans used specific valuables for trading with each other. The primary method seemed to be small bits of metal, but it had also seen one or two memories where Avery had gotten very excited over some special kinds of stones.

That was easier for the core to understand, for it had realized that it was itself a kind of stone, and it was clearly magnificent, so why would humans not want such amazing things?

Also, given the core’s mana perception and its presence underground, it was relatively easy for it to find some of the shinier stones. It already had far, far more of the stones the humans seemed to love, but was saving those for future “crops.”

Fortunately, the humans had seemed adequately satisfied by the reward the core had offered to them, and they had even wanted to push ahead to get more deeper into the cave system, which had been wonderful. The core was eager to see its efforts tested by the humans, especially since it had tried to make things a bit easier for this first group, as it wanted to encourage more humans to visit.

Overall, the core had been quite satisfied with its creatures that it had improved and enhanced. The birds with the blades of wind had been surprisingly effective, considering they had such a weak attack. The core had grossly underestimated the level of importance that humans placed on their eyes instead of their other senses. The invisible attack had proven the most challenging to the visitors.

The foxes the core had been so proud of had, unfortunately, proven less effective than it had hoped. They were one of the first beasts that the core had managed to grant magical abilities to, and the light mana affinity they had been given was something they had instinctively started using to create illusions.

For reasons that the core could not understand, the stronger the mana affinity in the foxes, the more tails they grew. It was completely baffling, but there seemed to be some sort of connection.

So far, the core had managed to create a single four-tailed fox, but it was certain that was not the limit, and it was constantly challenging the limits of its creatures. However, the core also understood that it needed to provide a gradually increasing challenge to its visitors, and so the more powerful creatures had been moved further underground or only allowed to appear once or twice in a given cavern.

Already, the core had seen ways to further improve deeper caverns to make them more challenging. What if the swamp became a tangled mess that had the trail shift and move while the humans were exploring it? What if it repeated the same environment twice, but completely changed the attacks and creatures waiting for the humans?

There were so many possibilities to test out, but they all required a single constant: more visitors.

With the humans gone, the core worked on extending its underground domain further, and also ensuring that everything was set for its next visitors. Given their success, the core was certain the humans would return for more, and it intended to be ready for them.

At the moment, the core only had three caverns open to the humans, though it had others being prepared.

At the same time, the core had started considering the possibility of starting another cave of challenges for the humans, if this one proved successful. Could it create “farms” near each of the humans’ “nations”? That was a very exciting idea, but the core was determined not to push too far too fast. It was clear that humans were relatively weak, so it might be important to eventually start improving the humans as well so that they would provide better “harvests” for the core. It had seen from Avery’s memories that human farmers used the same idea to improve their own harvests from their farms, and since the core was already improving its own creatures, improving its harvests only made sense.

For about the first time in its entire existence, the core became impatient.

It wanted to continue testing its beasts and its caverns out on the humans, but to do so, it needed more humans to visit, and it had no idea how long that might take.

Days passed, and though the core was impatient, it also had a very limited sense of time. After all, it had no sight without using the senses of one of its beasts, and so it could not see the rising or setting of the sun. It did not experience hunger or thirst, and so it could not understand the passing of time through meals. It did not sleep, and so there was no cycle that it naturally experienced. The core simply was, and that made something as subjective as time a very vague concept to the core.

In fact, the only understanding of the passing of time that the core could experience was the natural cycles of its own beasts, but since it had unwittingly created a different cycle for each cavern and ecosystem, even that was a rather vague cycle without focusing on a single thing. With the core’s natural ability to split its attention among countless different thoughts and tasks, focusing on a single thing was practically impossible.

In the end, about two weeks passed before the core received new visitors. It was the same group as before, with the sole exception of the old man. The mana user—mage? Priest?— had been replaced by a younger man, though from what the core could sense, the younger man’s mana reserves were nearly a match for his predecessor. Why had they made the change for an inferior version, regardless of how slight the difference?

The core watched with great anticipation as the herd of humans worked their way through the cave and into the forest. Despite their evident caution, they moved much more quickly than before, though they seemed badly startled to be met by a bear with flaming claws at the end of the cavern rather than the life-affinitied stag.

The core was testing things, so why would it provide exactly the same challenge each time? That would completely defeat the purpose of its tests.

The humans recovered quickly, and they adapted to the flame bear. There were shouts and some desperate scrambles as they jumped and twisted to avoid the bear’s hot claws. The new mana user proved his abilities by creating barriers that could briefly block the bear’s attacks, which provided just enough of an opening for the fighters to either dodge or retaliate.

The barriers quite intrigued the core, as it had never seen mana used to stop something physical. While its birds used blades of wind, mana moved the wind, which created the blades, rather than actually creating an attack that affected physical matter.

This was an intriguing ability that opened entirely new possibilities to the core. A large portion of its processing power started examining what could be done with this new information, even as it continued to observe the humans.

They appeared to be slightly disappointed that their reward for passing through the forest was less than their first visit, but the core intended to reward first-time accomplishments the most. The first people to complete a cavern would receive the greatest rewards, and the first time that any team completed a cavern they would receive a greater reward than they would from subsequent visits.

After all, after the first visit, knowledge would make subsequent visits easier, so why should the reward remain the same?

In the end, the core’s stinginess and logic had already placed it firmly on the path of believing in meritocracy.

The humans rested in the dark of the cave before proceeding into the swamp. The core watched as they interacted with each other, ate, checked the condition of their various equipment and their bodies. While the core knew from the memories it had acquired that human senses were rather limited, it remained amazed at the idea of not being able to instantly observe everything in full detail and instead have to carefully examine small sections of reality in order to obtain a complete picture of what existed in that place. How frustrating it must be to be so restricted.

Before entering the swamp, the core watched as the humans stopped right at the entrance to the cavern. There, the mana user started creating mana barriers around each of the humans. While each of the barriers was weaker than what had been used during the fight against the bear, these barriers surrounded each of the humans and moved with them.

Fascinating!

The herd of humans quickly moved into the swamp, and were soon attacked by one of the birds. This time, the blades of wind merely glanced off of the barriers, unable to cause the slightest bit of harm. It was clear why the mana user had been replaced. This human seemed perfect for countering the birds’ attacks.

Was it possible that there were humans perfectly suited to countering each of the core’s creatures? That was an interesting possibility, as well as one that encouraged greater diversity among its minions.

Thus far, the worst wound the core had observed any of the humans suffer were scratches from some thorns in the underbrush. They had been prepared for most of the beasts in the forest, and were also clearly prepared for the birds in the swamp.

The core started nudging more diverse creatures to attack, wanting to test things as completely as possible.

Snakes, lizards, and even some fish attacked the humans, and while the barriers would occasionally weaken a bit, the mana user would either reinforce or replace them each and every time.

They continued to meander through the cavern, and surprisingly, the most effective aspect of the cavern for slowing the humans was the wet dirt. Almost all of the humans would occasionally slip, and only the skinny one with the bow had avoided completely falling. Was this related to humans’ fewer number of limbs? While using only two of their appendages for movement allowed them greater use of tools and weapons, it also seemed to make them vulnerable to unstable footing.

This could prove quite useful.

Some time later, the herd of humans arrived at the far side of the cavern, where they were confronted by a giant salamander. This was a beast the core was eager to test out, as it was one of the first creatures the core had been able to provide with multiple mana affinities. The salamander could control both earth and water, and given the trouble the humans had already shown with their footing in the mud, the core had high expectations for the salamander.

Sure enough, the herd of humans had some struggles. They slipped about as the salamander attacked with both magic and its slippery body. The humans struggled to keep their footing and to land any attacks of their own, yet the salamander also struggled to land any effective attacks. The mana user’s barriers stopped anything from actually harming his companions, much to the core’s frustration.

In the end, it was the skinny man with the bow who proved the most effective, as his arrows were able to pierce the salamander’s skin that many of the other attacks and weapons slid right off. After blinding the salamander, the humans made much quicker progress in putting the beast down.

They moved on, ignoring the beast’s body, and then approached the cavern’s exit, which featured another small column of stone with an appropriate reward for their efforts, and another message from the core.

The core quite enjoyed its messages, as they were the entity’s first efforts at trying to communicate with others. It had spent a great deal of thought on the messages, and had taken particular care in shaping the stone to form the writing, wanting its first messages to be as close to perfect as possible.

Once again, the humans showed a great deal of excitement at the offered reward, though less than the core had hoped to see at its message. In fact, they barely glanced at the writing on the wall next to the cave before leaving the cavern and resting in the safety of the darkness of the cave.

After resting for a few hours, the humans started making their preparations to visit the third and final cavern.

However, only the core knew that the third cavern did not exist.

Each section of the core’s “farm” was supposed to feature a different environment, and given the core’s experience and observations, there were only a few ecosystems that were possible for it to employ. It had only ever seen the forest, and there was a small swamp in the forest, but the core knew nothing of other possibilities, such as tundras, rainforests, jungles, savannahs, mountains, deserts, prairies, or any of myriad other options.

Given its options, the core had decided to emulate one of its greatest teachers throughout its entire existence: an ant colony.

The third area of the core’s “farm” featured an underground maze that was intended to be an oversized ant colony with small caverns and a tangled web of tunnels.

Given the core’s variety of creatures, ants were far from the only creature in the maze, as there were also centipedes, beetles, giant moles, worms, and other such subterranean creatures.

The tunnels and chambers were all illuminated with dimly glowing moss and lichen, as the core had also learned that ants did not allow its fungi to grow in their colonies, though they did seem to gather some other varieties.

The maze was actually the region that the core was most uncertain of, as it simply had nothing to use as a basis for how humans might perform in enclosed areas.

The small herd of humans moved forward, slowing as soon as they detected a source of light in front of them. The skinny male moved forward on his own, creeping towards the glow to investigate before the others joined him.

The core felt it was getting a bit better at reading the humans, and the skinny man appeared to be somewhat surprised when the tunnel became gently illuminated by a different source of light, as well as the fact that the tunnel did not end. From where the moss and lichen started to grow and light up the cave, different tunnels started branching off in various directions.

Much the same as an ant nest, this entire section was riddled with numerous tunnels that twisted around each other in all three dimensions.

While the core knew that it was not very skilled at reading the changing shapes of human faces, it was quite certain that the blood leaving the skinny man’s face had to be a sign of surprise. Furthermore, the man’s heart started to beat faster, and his pupils dilated, all of which correlated to the memories that the core had acquired from Avery.

The man scurried back to the rest of the humans, and they huddled together for a bit while discussing things before they started moving forward once again.

The core eagerly waited to see the performance of its subterranean creatures, as well as that of the humans in the confined spaces of the tunnels. Everything about what the core was about to observe was new, which made it all far more interesting and valuable.

Over the next few hours, the core was both happy and disappointed by what it observed. The humans moved slowly and hesitantly, yet performed well. Out of all of the subterranean creatures, the beetles and the earthworms gave them the most trouble, though for different reasons.

For the most part, the core’s creatures within the tunnels lacked the raw power to be very effective against the humans. If the ants, beetles, or centipedes managed to get their pincers on anyone, the results would be devastating, but the problem was having them actually connect.

The beetles once again proved to be virtually indestructible, but they were slow and not particularly powerful.

The earthworms lacked sufficient attack power, yet the humans had a terrible time anticipating the sudden attacks from the earth that surrounded them in literally every direction. Having to be on guard from attack from either side, as well as the earth above and below, strained the humans to their breaking point.

Out of everywhere the humans had visited, the maze took the longest, and though neither they nor the core realized it, it took over twenty-four hours for them to find the end of the maze.

There, they faced off against an incredibly large and toxic centipede, and the core was thrilled to see that this one was able to hold its own a bit better.

Unless the humans’ weapons managed to land a blow between pieces of chitin, the centipedes proved nearly impervious to all physical attacks.

Additionally, before the fight ended, the centipede managed to poison two of the warriors and even ate one person’s foot.

The humans struggled for their victory, which was exactly what the core had wanted.

They stepped over the battered corpse, and approached the end of the cave system. Once again, the core had left a bit of writing, as well as a short pillar with a reward.

Yet again, the reward was richer than the previous rewards, and after collecting the gemstones and briefly muttering about the core’s final message, the humans turned back to make their way out from the caves.

The core had already started absorbing its mana back from the bodies of its dead minions, but for the first time, the humans turned back in time to actually witness the process for themselves.

The process was rather fast, but not instantaneous, and the parts of the bodies that possessed greater mana density took longer to absorb.

Oddly enough, the core had found that creatures that it had raised off of the affinities in mana rather than on physical food and sustenance fully disappeared when it reabsorbed the mana. It seemed that without the animating energy of life, there was nothing left to hold the creature together.

As the giant centipede disappeared, the last bit remaining was its sickle-shaped pincers that glowed green from the magical toxicity the core had infused into them. When everything else had disappeared and only the two pincers remained, one of the men stepped forward and picked up the two pincers. After looking them over and discussing some things with the others, the man strapped the pincers to his pack and they started walking back through the maze.

The core was rather stumped, and it stopped re-absorbing its mana. The humans wanted body parts too? What for? The pincers were inedible and highly poisonous, so what would they use them for?

Curious to see what might happen next, the core continued to observe the humans as they navigated the maze and returned to the dark tunnel. The skinny man had unerringly led them through the maze without even a single wrong turn.

As soon as the herd of humans were back in the dark tunnel, they collapsed in exhaustion. Four of them instantly fell asleep, while the other two stood watch. After some time, they switched shifts before resuming their exit.

Just the same as before, the core had decided that anyone retreating from its domain would remain unmolested, as it felt it was the best way to encourage the humans to return again and again. Rules needed to be in place that could be understood and followed, as rules allowed for some measure of predictability, which was very important.

Finally, the humans left the caves for the second time, much richer than when they had entered, though missing one foot.