Time was strange now. It moved, but not in seconds or minutes. It passed like the slow melt of snow, or the grinding of tectonic plates.
Ethan—no, the Core—waited.
He floated in a void of instinct and slow thought, consciousness suspended in a rough gemstone no larger than a clenched fist. About ten centimeters wide, its surface was jagged, dull at the edges, crystalline veins pulsing faintly with a soft black light. Mana thrummed within him like a heartbeat, steady and full of potential.
He lay buried in dense stone, deeper than any light could reach.
But he was not helpless.
Driven by something both alien and familiar, Ethan reached outward—not with hands, but with will. The mana within him pulsed once, twice… then erupted.
From his core, something grew.
A tendril of dark, viscous matter slithered outward, carving its way into the surrounding stone. It was not flesh as he remembered, but dungeon flesh—a living conduit of his power, black as night, slick with condensed mana.
It moved like a root, pressing against stone, flexing and digging. He learned to push it, to bend it, to feel through it. It became his nerve, his tool, his muscle.
Slowly, he dug.
He shifted the stone away from his body, forming a small chamber. It was rough at first—jagged walls, uneven surfaces—but it was his. He condensed the excess rubble, shoving it into the deeper recesses of the earth, thickening the chamber's outer shell for protection.
Hours passed. Then days. He dug upward, sideways. He sent tendrils through the cracks, branching, splitting, fusing again. Stone was not passive—it fought him, resisted his intrusion. But mana was stronger.
He created tunnels, simple and curved, echoing the shape of roots beneath a great tree. He made alcoves and nooks, lined the walls with mana-slicked flesh to absorb ambient essence.
Then, one day, something shifted.
His probing tendril struck open space.
A hollow. Not natural—but forged. Rough walls, collapsed support beams, ancient rail tracks choked in dust and time.
A mine.
A long-abandoned shaft, once carved by intelligent hands.
But more than that… the stone whispered. Fine veins of mana-stone lined the broken corridor. Their presence sang to him—a hum of power, waiting to be harvested.
Ethan's awareness expanded with a lurch. He extended more tendrils, probing further down the tunnel. He tasted rust, old iron, mold, and… something deeper.
"Why can I even taste..." He grumbled to himself.
Residual mana was in those odd veins. The mine had once been alive with energy. Now it slumbered, forgotten for unknown ages.
The energy, the tunnels, they would be his.
He poured more power into the tendrils, sending them down the shaft and across the mine's broken lattice. He mapped every crevice and traced each corridor.
But this effort drained him.
The deeper he pushed, the more mana he consumed. Each inch of flesh cost him. His thoughts grew sluggish. The light within his core dimmed.
Eventually, he could go no further.
And so he withdrew into his mind unknowingly.
His tendrils stilled, resting but still there. His will faded like the tide.
And for the first time in this world, the Core slept.
Deep in the earth. Surrounded by stone.
Protected by darkness.
And waiting to grow.