AN: Sorry this took a while. It's been hard to find time to write between college and work. Anyways, I've been going back and changing certain details to make the system more consistent. The biggest thing I changed is that rooms made with destruction have a size limit so Ray can't just turn the entire camp into a pit, just most of it. Like always, tell me about any errors you spot, and enjoy the chapter.
edit: whoops, forgot to threadmark the chapter.
Alright, the last three buildings have been claimed! Took almost eight hours, but, hey, at least that's faster than before, right? The buildings were a second barrack that looked like it was being used as extra storage, an armory/blacksmithing area, and a treasure room. Of the three, the last was the most interesting. Between all the gold coins and shiny knickknacks, there was a dagger that was, apparently, enchanted. I say this apparently because I must've broken the enchantment when claiming it. I only realized it was special after getting a weird flood of information from it.
When I claimed the dagger I learned it was made of something called Black Iron and was crafted by "drawing out the fundamental properties of Metal and infusing the seed of Blades". Which kind of sounds more like alchemy than enchanting to me, but I was never much of a crafter, so what do I know? Personally, I'd rather just etch a rune, since I'm fluent in Ancient, but to each their own. I'm sure there's some advantage to doing it their way. I'm just not seeing it. Besides that info dump, I also got one more thing from claiming the dagger.
[You have gained the dungeon management skill, rewards!]
Yep, I can set drop rates on my monsters now and even spawn treasure chests! Obviously, I'm not going to right now since the only invaders I have are bandits and I don't want to give them anything but I should be able to make something for Yīng Yì now. Plus, it'll be a good bargaining chip after this whole situation is dealt with.
Speaking of, I think I might be able to go on the attack soon. Maybe even tonight. Honestly, it's amazing what you can do with mana to spare and a legion of monsters under your command. While barely paying attention, I've managed to claim almost ten feet of earth across the entire camp with the help of the tunnels, and I've even claimed a full twenty feet down around the well. It wasn't too hard either. I just kept evolving a bunch of ants into workers, making the occasional slime rooms, and did some slight reinforcement so that the (already well-supported) tunnels didn't collapse and give away our whole operation.
Honestly, the only real problem I ran into was that all the monsters I'm making are starting to cut into my mana regen. Yeah, turns out they have a daily mana upkeep cost since they don't have food. Well, the ants do; the slimes seem to be surviving off of the dirt pretty well.
Let's see, what else have I been doing… I've been watching the bandits run around like headless chickens all night trying to find a traitor that doesn't exist. It was actually pretty funny watching them accuse each other, convinced that they knew who was the culprit. Surprisingly, though, none of them even approached the jail to question Bao Lin or Yīng Yì. They must really fear that Fan Jian guy. Which makes sense, they probably don't want to get turned into exp. Or blood in this case.
Whatever the reason, I'm just happy they left them alone so Bao Lin could work on her magic. I'm pretty sure she was up until two in the morning doing exactly that based on when the itch of getting my mana stolen stopped. Let's see what she's cooked up!
Immediately taking my consciousness back to the cell, I- enter the walls and hit a void. What the- All of the mana I poured into the room is missing! Did Bao Lin seriously use all of it? How did I not notice that? Pouring mana into the room, I caught the last bit of a conversation.
"-amazing, Bao Lin. I can almost feel my meridians realigning."
"I'm so glad… does that mean that you-?!" She yelped.
"My Lady?!"
She waved him down. "It's nothing. The spirit just surprised me again." Looking up, she greeted me. "Welcome back, Mister Ray Wood."
Yeah, yeah, it's me. How the hell did you use up all of the mana in the room? There were like ten mage pools worth of mana in here!
She bowed her head. "My apologies. I simply couldn't stop absorbing mana once I started. It just felt so natural."
Right... Well, what did you do with it?
"Pardon?"
Your spell! I assume you made one. So tell me about it! What does it do?
She looked over at Yīng Yì with hesitation before explaining. "It's a meridian healing technique. I was using it to heal Yīng Yì's internal cultivation."
I didn't think it would be that easy to fix.
"It shouldn't be. It's supposed to be impossible!"
Alright. Is that all then?
"What- You- Do you not understand how incredible this is?"
Not really. It just seems like a high-level healing spell to me. I mean, if you want to talk about it, we can. I do know a little bit of magic theory, but that should wait until the, y'know, bandits are dealt with.
"I... yes... you're right."
So can he use his qi now?
She passed on the question and Yīng Yì shook his head. "Not yet. At this rate… it would take a year to fully recover. Longer still before I could begin cultivating again."
"I just need more mana and you could be healed even sooner. Then you could get us out of here."
"My Lady..." He trailed off, clearly doubtful of that claim.
We probably shouldn't put all our eggs into one basket Bao Lin. I mean, I'll support you as much as I can with mana, but I need as much of it as I can get to get us out of here.
Bao Lin looked like she wanted to argue for a moment before huddling up. "...Very well."
Uh, yeah. Anyways, tell Yīng Yì I found out how to make weapons so I can just spawn him one when we're ready to break out. Should be a magical one too.
"Truly? That's incredible." She paused before continuing. "I didn't know spirit buildings could do that."
I'm a pretty special building.
There was a moment of silence.
So... do you have any questions about mana before I go back to digging?
Bao Lin almost immediately perked up. "Yes! What is mana? How does it work? Where did it come from? I have so many things I want to know!"
Yīng Yì looked up as well. "I've been wondering the same thing actually, Mister Ray Wood. It feels so different from qi when My Lady was healing me. Like pure emotion."
That's not far off, actually. Mana is essentially the power of the mind. It's chaotic, hard to control, and can do pretty much anything if you have enough of it and can convince it to do what you want.
"Convince?"
It's a whole thing I don't really feel like getting into right now. Long story short, you have to convince mana that it's not just energy. Not too hard since it's super sensitive to intent, but it's something that gets harder the more mana you're dealing with. Plus, if you want really strong spells, you have to combine that with stuff that carries a lot of meaning and magical foci. Make sense?
"I... believe so?"
We can talk more about it later. I got things to do if you guys want to get out of here by tomorrow.
Bao Lin froze. "So soon?"
Yep. So work on your spell some more! Give it a name and stuff. It would make things much easier if Yīng Yì was at full strength!
Snapping away before she could respond, I go back to digging and claiming. Like always. Honestly, who knew my life in a second different world would be so boring?
