Upping The Ante

75. Playing with Water

After delivering the Biomass to the surface and marking it with pheromones so the colony will pick it up, we return to the entrance, making sure to conceal it. I feel good knowing all this Biomass is going to bring the queen closer to upgrading all of her egg production organs and laying the first generation of the new workers!

For that happy occasion to come to pass, we need to work hard. Get to it, Anthony! Protect the colony! Kill the invaders!

Once we get back down, we backtrack up the tunnel and check out the branching paths off the main tunnel. After two hours of meticulous searching, we come up with nothing… no tracks, no monsters, no nothing.

Seems like that deadly wave of monsters only came up the tunnel we were in. That’s far too much of a coincidence to write off as luck. There must be something about this tunnel in particular…

After resting briefly—I get Crinis to hop off so I can stretch my legs—I decide we’ll venture farther down and explore this tunnel a little deeper. We aren’t that far down here. If there’s any serious action happening, it’s surely going to be deeper than this.

The four of us gird ourselves and begin to venture deeper into the Dungeon.

As we descend, I can really feel the difference in the Mana. It’s certainly denser than it was when we fled the Dungeon at the start of the wave, no doubt about it. I think the wave has clearly moved into a new phase, as stronger monsters with longer gestation periods are forming in the walls now. On the one hand, it means they aren’t popping out every few minutes. On the other, it means a stronger fight when they’re finally formed.

This is slightly better than it was before, but not by much.

Still, this change leads me to conclude that something weird is going on in the Dungeon, and I don’t like it. The monsters become tougher as we descend, even if they aren’t necessarily a higher tier of creature. Something I’ve noticed is that even creatures of the same species are often found lower down if they’re a higher Level. Perhaps it’s a natural instinct of monsters to move lower the stronger they get?

Certainly, I have a good reason to be inside the Dungeon, with my core draining until I die if I don’t have access to the sweet, sweet Mana.

Along the way, I start practicing the formation of the Water Mana Transformation construct. It’s far simpler than the Mind Magic one, so it doesn’t take long for me to start making progress. I wonder if this is how human mages train, by repeatedly forming these constructs until they get good enough to form them at high speeds so they can cast spells.

It makes sense. I’m cheating in many ways, since rather than improve my mind through exercises and repeated practice I simply upgraded my brain during the evolution process…

Ha! This is the advantage of monster-kind! This is my consolation for having to eat guts and bones all the time without any seasoning!

I let Tiny resume his monster slapping role, filling in my Tunnel Map and tracing the side tunnels a ways when they appear. I wonder if there’s an Expanse down here somewhere. From what I’ve been told of the Dungeon, they appear fairly regularly at various depths. The Forest Expanse was only unusual for how close it was to the surface. The various Expanses are almost like the organs of the Dungeon, the vital ecosystems that keep it running. The connecting tunnels are like the veins, allowing monsters and Mana to flow between them. At least that’s how the human queen phrased it.

It isn’t really a question of if there’s an Expanse down here, but where it is. It may be straight down or off to one side of us. No matter what, all main tunnels will eventually connect to an Expanse, so as long as we trace them out, we’re going to find one.

About twenty minutes later, I finally succeed in forming my first Water Mana Transformation construct.

Woo!

So much easier than the Mind Magic one… my upgraded brain has already succeeded! Perhaps this is the effect of the affinity skill as well?

I can’t wait to try out some spells!

Feeding the construct raw Mana, it begins to perform its intricate dance, working its special alchemy on the raw Mana from my core until it finally emerges from the other end as shimmering blue water Mana.

So exciting!

I leave one sub-brain in charge of holding the construct in place and task the other with feeding a constant stream of raw Mana from my core into it while I take the Mana and begin testing some of the known shapes to see what works.

First, the bolt!

Following much the same principles as the Gravity Bolt, I begin to use the Mana to weave the familiar shape until a shimmering blue bolt is formed within my mind. Nice! Let’s test this sucka!

Fire!

Fwoosh!

Filled with blue Mana, a dense ball of water is formed that blasts forward and impacts against a nearby rock formation where it explodes. Water flies everywhere and the stone partially crumbles under the impact of the pressurised water ball.

Holy heck!

So nice!

Let’s try the spear.

I gather a new Mana thread and start trying to form the spear shape, but the spell doesn’t seem to want to come together. The more I try and force it, the more it pushes back until the whole things snaps and comes apart.

What!

Why the heck did that fail?

I try again, a bit irritated, and the same thing happens. I get to a point where the spell simply won’t come together and if I try to force it, the whole thing breaks and dissolves to nothing.

GAH!

Let’s put the spear aside for a moment and try something else.

I could try the Domain spell I guess… but I don’t want to use that much Mana and exhaust my mind. What other shapes are there? I haven’t looked at the others since I haven’t really used them in so long.

Hmm…

I flick through a few different spells in my mind before settling on one. This’ll do!

The shape I’ve chosen is similar to the spear but more open ended, kind of like a cylinder within a cylinder, and both are engraved with elaborate patterns and signs. Not the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Let’s give it a go!

With my powerful main mind on the job, I work patiently through the process of forming the construct, and ten minutes later, it’s finally complete! I may have had to remake a few parts, but for my first go that isn’t too bad.

Let’s power it up and see what it does.

Fire!

FOOM!

A solid jet of water appears above my head and blasts forward as if shot from a fire hose. Holy Moly! The potent stream of water sends spray fountaining everywhere as it smashes into the wall of the tunnel.

Ah! It’s still drawing on my Mana. Turn it off! Turn it off!

So, a Water Cannon?

Tiny is looking at me, irritated, dripping wet from the spray.

…Sorry about that, buddy!

I wonder which other shapes will work. There are a few I still haven’t tried, even with Gravitational Mana. Since my raw Mana is being replenished quite rapidly through my feet I may as well try and experiment.

I think of the various shapes that have been implanted in my head when learning my magic related skills and find one to my liking. This one is sort of a curved arc with a cloud-like base. I don’t know why, but I feel like it will be impressive.

It’s a bit more difficult than the last one, so I take my time to carefully construct it. Tiny’s busy slapping to death the various monsters we come across. Eventually it’s ready and I start powering it. The moment I do, I realise this one is going to need quite a lot of juice before I can cast it.

[Tiny? Come and stand behind me.]

The giant ape moves behind me, carefully positioning his lumbering form to avoid possible splash back.

Still thinking about that, eh?

Being careful, I continue to feed the water attribute Mana into the spell as it comes out of my transformation construct, drawing the reserves in my core lower and lower. Just how much is this spell going to take?

Aha, ready at last!

After activating the spell, I stumble a little against the potent magic.

With a colossal BOOM, water explodes out of the ground in front of me with a deafening roar and thunders down the tunnel in a mighty tidal wave!

Stalagmites shatter and get washed away by the sheer kinetic force of the wave as it froths and foams, eventually following the tunnel around a bend and out of sight.

Then a chorus of angry roars echoes up the chamber.

…Whoops?