I’d realised that in moments of intense pain, my mind liked to wander into weird questions.
Why are humans sapient, while other creatures are limited? Is it a matter of brain size?
I knew that it probably wasn’t just about size, as some creatures had larger brains than humans, but were still dumb.
Maybe it’s the cell density inside the brain?
The pain made me think of another crazy notion.
What if I tried to create a brain?
My biomancy skill was the skill with the highest upgrade options available—able to reach the zenith, and this skill promised good results in intricate creations.
Nothing in the human body was more intricate than the brain. It was the source of thought, action, reaction, and… possibly consciousness.
If I can create a brain… Can I create a living being?
A being that had unimaginable power, unlimited versatility, and impossible BP. A being like none before, nor after. A being that could act as my main vessel, and through it, I achieve my dreams.
Excitement surged, relieving my pain a bit, but then I pondered on the matter more…
What is a being even?
In my current understanding, beings were made of building blocks called cells, so, theoretically, if I were to combine cells in their correct orders, couldn’t I create a being?
But there’s the soul too, and then there consciousness and its mysterious source. Only one way to find out…
Experimentation and experience had been my main ways of acquiring knowledge apart from human interaction.
I can’t wait to start trying.
The room walls suddenly started to brighten.
What is going on?
Somani seemed to know, as he explained.
‘When you lost consciousness, I faced the same situation. We’ll have to fight.’
‘Fight what?’
‘We’ll see.’
A rectangular human-sized opening appeared in one of the walls, revealing a red corridor.
“Prisoner #96047, please proceed forward,” a voice similar to the System spoke.
Prisoner 96047? Is that the number of beings detained here?
Somani followed the order.
‘Don’t!’
‘I can’t, Cello. They’ll harm me if I don’t follow their order, but don’t worry. After killing our enemy, we’ll return here.’
Are they constantly observing us?
The idea creeped me out and made me revise a lot of my actions and decisions.
‘So what? You shouldn’t obey their orders.’
‘Trust me. There’s nothing to worry about.’
‘I trust that you’ll try to destroy the Empire, but after the dream, I don’t trust your judgment.’
“Prisoner #96047, proceed forward.”
‘We’re running out of time,’ Somani said nervously.
‘I sai—‘
Zzzzp!
We fell to the ground, twitching.
…We entered the corridor.
After many dizzying twists and turns, we reached a huge chamber with a corridor like ours at the opposite wall.
A green creature walked. It was double Somani’s height with bulging muscles, small yellow eyes, and four arms. It stared around before locking onto us.
Hobgoblin, Lv. ??
Somani launched his prepped Mana Bomb.
Boov!
The explosion pulverised its raised upper arms.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Screeech!
It ran at us, and unlike my expectation, Somani ran towards it, too.
‘What are you doing?! Keep your distance!’
Somani snickered before his skin’s faint white glow intensified a bit.
The monster punched with its lower limbs.
Somani ducked beneath them before he gave the monster a taste of his fists.
The monster twisted like a broken twig.
If I had eyes, I knew that they would’ve bulged at this sight.
How did he do that?!
I opened our status and found the culprit—[Mana Infusion].
Somani head-bumped the creature before swiping at its leg, felling it.
A Mana spike formed at his heel’s end, and he stomped on the creature’s head.
You have killed Hobgoblin, Lv. 91
Primus Magus has reached Lv. 31
Primus Magus has reached Lv. 32
‘Somani… how did you unlock this skill?’
Somani smiled.
‘I remembered one of Uncle Hambara’s class conditions, and had the idea to infuse Mana into myself instead of into the air. It wasn’t easy, but through regeneration, I unlocked this skill.’
If he’s saying it wasn’t easy, then it must be extremely hard to get.
The system-sounding voice spoke again.
“Prisoner #96047, proceed towards the blue wall.”
Suddenly, a wall began to shine blue, and a corridor opened up in its midst.
‘That’s new. Last time, I was asked to return through the same corridor I had entered from. What should we do?’
I tried to think of a reason for this discrepancy.
‘Last time, you tried to gain this new skill not out of leisure; your fight was going terribly, right?’
Somani nodded.
‘Don’t nod. Only speak and answer me through thought. If they’re always observing us, they could catch on to this discrepancy.’
I had learned my lesson from what happened with Hamabra: Never give humans any indications of my existence. Even small social cues were unacceptable. I was our best bet toward salvation, and I couldn’t throw it away for stupid inexperience. I had to use my mind and always be a step ahead.
Could they be dissatisfied with this fight’s result, or maybe it’s just another form of torture?
The voice ordered us to proceed again.
‘I think we should just enter. It’s not like we have that many options,’ Somani urged me to make up my mind.
‘Drag the corpse and throw it into the corridor.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Just do it.’
I wanted to see our action limits and to know whether we truly were constantly observed or if this voice only reacted to certain actions.
Somani dragged the corpse and threw it with a surge of Mana infusion…
Nothing.
The voice didn’t say anything.
‘What now?’
‘Continue dragging it until we reach our next destination.’
Ooof
‘I hope you know what you’re doing, and not just working me as revenge on the dream.’
He’s really going through a rebellious phase, isn't he?
‘I can drag it if you won’t.’
‘No, I prefer to keep control of my body than watch through my eyes as a de—you control it.’
Somani dragged the corpse, and I could see that Mana infusion was taking loads of Mana to keep up.
At this rate, he could keep it up for maybe another fight.
After more dizzying turns and twists, we reached another hall, but this time, our foe was already there.
Cyclops, Lv. ???
Identify has reached Lv. 6
A higher level… maybe they really want to push us to our limits, for torture, or any other sadistic reason.
The cyclops was shorter than the hobgoblin, but made up for it with more mass. Its face had no nose, only slits, and was missing an eye, but its most striking feature was the smell; It was the worst thing I’ve ever smelled.
Somani started to gag and dropped the corpse; the action released a loud thud that attracted the cyclops
The creature neither screeched, roared, nor made any other sound. It walked towards us slowly and solemnly.
Somani held his breath and threw a Mana Bomb against the creature.
Boov!
The explosion took a head-sized piece out of its huge belly, revealing yellow tissue, but…
The flesh mended with visible speed, and I swore I could see a small smile on the creature’s ugly face.
‘Don’t approach this one, Somani.’
‘I disagree. It’s slow; I’ll play with it.’
Somani ran at the monster, his leg’s skin’s glow intensifying as he reinforced it with Mana, which exponentially increased his speed.
I wanted to help as much as I could, so I tried to activate [Manima Senses].
AHHhh!
The pain returned with vengeance, but the skill activated, expanding into a sphere.
Somani jumped.
Soaring through the air, he aimed a kick with a white spike at the creature’s face—going for the kill, but…
Muscle tendons grew like snakes, going from toe to finger in a line of over-skin muscle.
The Cyclops’s speed surged. It held Somani's leg before hammering him against the ground.
Boov
Again.
Boov
Again.
Boov
I couldn’t do anything, as Somani’s head impacted against the ground. Thankfully, the kid was reinforcing it, or it would’ve already coloured the ground red.
Crk
I seemed to have spoken too soon, as Somani’s head opened up, spilling brain water, but the crystal brain held.
‘Somani! Explode your leg!’
‘Arg…h’
The kid was too dazed, only keeping Mana infusion through instincts.
I took control before creating a Mana Bomb next to the held limb.
Boov!
The explosion tore off the limb and took a few of the creature’s fingers.
I was thrown a short distance away, but before I could get up, the monster was upon me.
I need to get away.
I tried to use biomancy, but the pain made me black out for a moment.
The creature bit into my torso, but I had infused Mana into it, stopping its tusks from going too deeply.
I stopped using my sense skill and tried to activate [Hive Mind].
Pain, my old friend, attacked, but I pushed, and my BP rose to 10.
Two Mana Bombs appeared into existence just behind the monster’s head—the highest amount I could create with 10BP.
Goodbye.
Boooov!
The explosion tore a chunk from Somani’s body and sent him flying. He only stayed in one piece because of Mana infusion.
I slid on the ground, painting it red before stopping a short distance away from the wall.
The creature fell onto its knees before dropping onto its stomach; its head was pulverised.
Yes!
‘Good work, Cello!’
But then, with my increased intelligence, I remembered something…
The System notification…
Muscles surged forward, forming a bulge where the monster’s head was—the bulb was half the cyclops’s size.
I threw a Mana bomb, then another, and another before stopping due to fear of running out of Mana.
Argh
I gagged. The already horrible smell, combined with the smell of burnt flesh, was too much even for me.
The scorched muscles released black smoke, hindering my vision of the behemoth.
Fully kitted with muscle armour, it charged me.
I ran.
The monstrocity easily gained on me, even with me infusing Mana into my muscles.
I threw a Mana Bomb back at it, which it swatted, exploding its hand.
The wound quickly healed, but I didn’t stop my bombardment, keeping the slowly closing distance between us.
I tried to close in on a wall opening. Upon reaching it, the door closed.
Dammit!
My Mana was running extremely low, and my stamina too. I had to act, and now.
I quickly glanced at the Mana Bomb I was about to throw.
How can I increase your destructiveness?
I knew that the solution wasn’t in shoving in more Mana, as that would only make it harder to control, and it might explode in my hand.
Changing its composition?
The White Mana Bomb was made of raws upon raws of Mana strings, so changing its composition couldn’t be done without trial and error; something I currently didn’t have the luxury of.
I threw it back before creating another one.
The Mana strings swirled into the second bomb…
Aha!
I added some Mana from my film to the bomb in the hopes of increasing its potency, and…
The strings untangled, and the bomb fizzled into thin air.
I dodged to the right, barely escaping the thrown corpse.
What should I do?
Mixing my and Somani’s Mana didn’t work. Our cores…
Cores?
I turned and ran towards the creature.
I jumped, and… I hugged the monster’s torso.
Feel my love!
BOOOOOOOOV!
The explosion whitened the entirety of this hall, filling a huge sphere with volatile Mana energy.
What I had done was really simple: directly turn Somani’s core into the bomb by fiddling with its composition.
Somani’s core and probably most cores were made of dense crystal Mana. If one were to zoom in on the crystal shards composing the core, they’d see that they, too, were made of Mana particles—just really packed particles.
You have killed Cyclopse, Lv. 105
Primus Magus has reached Lv. 33
…
Primus Magus has reached Lv. 35
I call this attack: Suicidal Destruction!
***
Upon returning to our room, I noticed that Somani’s waste had disappeared.
Cleaned the room for us? How nice.
‘Exploding my core… that’s scary,’ Somani said.
‘Well, it was our best option. Anyways, do you remember the plan?’
Somani was about to nod before stopping himself and saying ‘Yes’.
Somani was a human; he couldn’t function without sleep. Unfortunately, our shut-eyes were going to be filled by a crazed torture-loving fog-faced human, who wanted to get our secrets.
My plan to stop this was simple: I’d bear the brunt of the torture using the contract to increase my control of Perfect Unity, which would make Somani an observer.
I hope this works.
‘I refuse to help you increase your power! We’ll destroy the empire, then we can increase your strength!’ Somani shouted internally.
‘Somani, but that’s not what we agreed upon in the contract.’
‘I don’t care about the Mana Contract. All I care about is myself!’
Then we waited, and waited, but…
Nothing.
I told Somani of a different conversation, and we enacted it.
The same result.
Another conversation yielded the same result.
At least now I’m sure that the System is sapient.