Dragonheart Core

I had no time to ponder the schema that now nestled far too close to my core.

The blast of mana from the bloody thing's death had revitalized my floors, refilling the ambient mana not to where it had been but a more comfortable level, points of awareness once more able to reform and fill in the gaps of my vision. I still wasn't comfortable with the lack of mana present, but it would have to do for the moment. This wasn't exactly something I could risk not being aware of.

My second thought was immediately to my creatures.

Seros and the sarco both sagged in the water, exhausted beyond all my reckoning; Seros from his mana channels scraped until emptier than empty, the sarco with injuries laced over his body. The pitch-shark hadn't even managed to land a single hit to him, pinned as it was in the small room and by Seros' hydrokinesis. Those injuries had all been gained just by touching its void-like skin.

I didn't like that. I didn't like any of this, not about this creature nor why it had attacked me. Underthings were supposed to stay in the Underdark. They'd been banished there, long before the breaking of Aiqith. As a sea-drake, I had been privy to more of the world than little humans could comprehend, and even I didn't know much about the Underdark, nor the beings that dwelt there.

What I did know was that they were supposed to stay there.

I shoved the thought out of my head. No time to concentrate on that.

I flew around to my various creatures, pressing soothing mana into their wounds and refilling their painfully dry channels as best I could—those that had survived the monster's raw presence were mostly evolved, having enough mana to survive being nearly emptied. It was another harrowing thought for me to confront.

My creatures weren't like others. They were born purely of mana, of power; if they were ever fully emptied, they just died. There was no biological matter to fall back on.

Only Seros had a chance of surviving it, being natural born instead of mine, but I didn't know if he could. Mana-exhaustion tended to come into effect when magic users had depleted on fractions of their core, still leaving enough for their body to run, and I had been giving Seros the mana he needed to work. If I hadn't been able to, what would have happened?

I didn't like that thought.

So I ignored it. I was getting uncomfortably good at that.

The sarco hissed, dragging himself off the bottom of the Underlake as my mana wrapped around his injuries, regrowing skin and scales as I poured blood back into his veins. On his tail, where he'd swept it up against the pitch-shark's side, something sharp had torn several spines out; I couldn't regrow those, not with their entire base ripped out. I smoothed over the scales as best I could, regrowing from the divot carved through his flesh; but it looked wrong.

A battle scar, then. The sarco would probably appreciate it.

For now, he just swam slowly back to the end of the Underlake, claws sheathing deep into the stone as he pulled himself out of the water and into the flat entrance to the tunnel that led down a floor, stretching out beneath the quartz-light I'd hung for him. Exhaustion pulled deep at his thoughts as he drifted away.

Seros was much the same, though his injuries were mana-based instead of physical. I pushed more and more mana into him, sending calming thoughts through our connection—not that he was expressively panicked, more because I was a dumbass and concerned about him—as I helped him rise up from the sandy bottom of the Underlake, guiding him to the same exit up a floor. He needed rest, and as much as he was a seabound monitor, it was easier to sleep on land.

So I shoved him with as much gentleness as I could muster, clearing any opportunist roughwater sharks who were too stupid to read the room and just wanted to attack their wounded rival out of the way. Seros bobbed to the surface, blue-green scales flashing in the algae-light as his gills pressed tight to his side. I dragged up a pillar of water and dumped him in a wet, bedraggled heap next to the sarco.

It was a testament to how much they'd put into this fight that they barely glanced at each other and just went to sleep.

My core tightened.

That hadn't been a normal attack. The pitch-shark had been too wrong for me to get a read on it, to understand why it was doing what it was, but it hadn't been here for anything good. Slicing through my bloodline kelp, ignoring all those that didn't attack it, squeezing itself into a space that barely fit its enormous size. Everything was wrong.

Worst of all, the fight hadn't even strengthened me; all the mana I'd gotten from its kill was what it had absorbed from me, even less with what it had managed to… digest before we'd killed it.

But there were some good signs.

Most of the mana it had absorbed had been from my ambient store and Mayalle's contributions. It had drained my creatures, yes, but not for the majority; too flighty, not as convenient as the stuff swimming around it.

So when it had died, that mana had been released in a blast, but not all of it had gone back to my ambient clouds. Quite a lot had gone into the creatures who had won the fight.

And messages crawled across my core.

Including one I'd been rather excited about for quite some time.

Your creature, a Silver Krait, is undergoing evolution!

Please select your desired path.

Sun-Banded Krait (Uncommon): Returning to its roots, it releases blast of light to distract and confuse its prey, darting in to inject its incredibly potent venom. In watery deeps where light does not reach, it reigns.

Fanged Sea Snake (Uncommon): Forgoing land entirely, it darts through the water with renewed speed and purpose. Lined in fangs repurposed as spines, it warns all creatures around it of a toxin that gives no mercy.

Fledgling Sea Serpent (Rare): Held aloft by dreams of larger seas, it terrorizes those around it with its superior mass and strength. All but the largest flee before it, and only those with knowledge of the past remember how enormous it will grow.

Oho.

Thankfully, the choice was made for me.

As I'd declared, I'd paid more attention to the silver krait's actions, wondering why he was attacking specifically sharks many times his size. The answer laid in the sarco—he'd seen what strength did. As incredibly useful as his venom was—too useful, really, I needed to shove a few more luminous constrictors into the Underlake in hopes they'd evolve to fill the pocket he left—he wanted more.

And this evolution would certainly give it to him. The fanged sea snake was tempting and the sun-banded krait would be very welcome on the Underlake, but they weren't what he had been shooting for. Even if he lost his venom from this evolution, it was what he wanted.

It seemed similar to the lunar cave bears, in an odd way—specifying fledgling. Those on my first floor were juveniles no longer, but their schema still declared it; was there a limit in how old I could spawn creatures?

Hm. It would make sense—for those with piddly lifespans like my cave spiders, it didn't matter if I had access to their entire age range. Those I spawned would be similar enough in mana cost it was negligible at best. Even for those like the constrictors, or mangrove trees; theoretically, I could create them older, but I tended to prefer younger versions to save on mana and allow them to mature within my halls.

But the difference between creating a hatchling and a full grown sea serpent would not just cripple me but the mountain itself.

I couldn't wait to see what he became.

Without any hesitation, I selected fledgling sea serpent.

Immediately he was overtaken with a glow, seeming to shiver in excitement; he knew what this meant. I guided the last slivers of his consciousness to pull himself on land, still having those pesky lungs, and all but shoved him into a den to finish evolving. I wasn't hedging my bets that this one would be short.

But there was another message present, one with new information I'd never seen before.

Your creature, an Armourback Sturgeon, is undergoing evolution!

Your Title of Resurrector bestows a path.

Armoured Jawfish (Exotic): A beast from elden waters. Its bony armour extends as fangs, protecting and enforcing the maw that can open fast enough to pull creatures within. There are few who dare to challenge it, and fewer still who survive.

Hm.

I mused over the words.

That was interesting.

I could remember back to when I'd first received the Title, declaring it as a gift for me fulfilling my purpose in bringing and returning mana to Aiqith; it had specified that I could revive dead things, but that I could also awaken dead bloodlines.

Was that what this was?

I stared at the sturgeon in question, the oldest and boldest of my dungeon by far. He had been around since the second floor, back when I'd had to individually guide a school of silverheads into growing the backbones necessary to take on an invading electric eel. Infantile.

But he was dungeonborn. So how did he have a bloodline?

I wasn't positive on the intricacies of the system, but I knew I shaped them from mana and carved a soul from Otherworld mana in particular to breathe life into them. Not exactly the process that would let me slip some fossilized blood into the mix in hopes that it would awaken later.

Unless it was more of a legacy, rather than a bloodline?

Hm.

This armourback sturgeon in particular had gone against his nature, ignoring the protection that his armour gave him and fighting back instead. All the way back from the original merrow attack, when he had nearly died from their saltwater; he had learned to fight after, despite having a body made for defense.

A rejection of his making, in a way.

So perhaps some god of the armoured jawfish had descended to grant him a bloodline? Or it simply worked that rejecting your heritage could allow you to gain another?

Very interesting. This required further testing.

And it looked like this was only good for me—I had never encountered an armoured jawfish, but I'd heard of them. Monsters in the depths, growing to enormous lengths and ripping into anything they could get their bony fangs into. Certainly the kind of beast I wanted within my halls.

And it wasn't exactly like I got a choice in this matter.

I selected armoured jawfish and watched light overtake the sturgeon, drifting quietly to the bottom of the Underlake as he prepared. I dragged great stone walls around him, protecting him while still allowing water to filter through; not a chance I would risk his death before I got to see my first Resurector evolution. The potential this had for future creatures was already delicious.

But I turned away from that for now. With things cleaned up, I needed answers; and there was only one place to get them.

That pitch-shark hadn't come from nowhere.