Evidently, magic was difficult.

Not that I knew the first thing about that—most of the ‘magic’ that I could do felt like second nature at this point, though I wasn’t sure if it was really in the same family as what Ephilia was trying to learn.

While she spent the remainder of the day attempting to channel her stubborn energy into something productive, I focused on trying to abuse my newest skill: [Horticulture I].

As far as I was concerned, this skill was a big one. The layers of bonuses to resynthesis were lovely, but the devil was in the details. It wasn’t what its tooltip said, but rather the implications that it carried: if these were the rules for plants, then I didn’t see any reason why they wouldn’t carry over to animals as well.

Which meant that these traits I was imbuing my employees with didn’t just naturally pass on to the next generation without some extra work put in. Not that I was planning on creating a rat militia or anything of the sort, it was simply an interesting tidbit I’d caught. At the very least, it explained how normal animals still existed at all and hadn’t been outcompeted by core-touched creatures originating from other cores in the past.

Given that Ephi was insistent that I not ‘waste’ my mana on handing her a skill up, that left my mana pooling up quickly over the next two days while I tended to other tasks.

The mite squad I left in charge of the boiler room performed their task to satisfactory results; the mites themselves showed no fear of fire, blue flickers dancing through the licking flames as they conjured fuel straight from my hoard and into the furnace.

Rough numbers, I estimated that I was going through somewhere between fifteen and twenty units of wood per day. Working off of the higher end of that spectrum, I had a bit over fifteen days worth of fuel sitting in my hoard, and that was assuming that I didn’t spend even an ounce of it for construction. Assuming winter here lasted three months…

Three months was about ninety days, ninety days would be one thousand and eight hundred lumber. Eighteen hundred to make it through winter at an absolute bare minimum.

Thankfully concerns like storage or rot were beyond my notice as a fancy rock on a pedestal, so I could at least ensure that if I hit that number, we’d be able to keep the greenhouse in good shape and the temperature inside my walls livable. Ideally I wanted more, so I set a goal for at least two-thousand-five-hundred set aside; if winter dragged on long here, which it likely would given the climate, we would be safe.

It wasn’t as if we would be entirely locked inside once the snow started to fall, either. Ephi might be, but I’d be free to continue to work as needed. I would just have to be cautious with where I chose to fell trees; a massive clearing in the middle of a forest was suspicious, and I had a glass dome to hide as well.

Maybe I could find a way to pay Cheshire to wrap some illusion magic around it or something.

By the sundown of the second day of studying, Ephi was sitting at 41% progress towards ranking up the spell [Rapid Bloom], though I could tell she was starting to lose a bit of her momentum. Given how determined she seemed about doing this for herself, I knew it was unlikely that I’d be able to talk her out of it. Instead, I chose to simply offer what encouragement I could—praise and a specially-built path up to the top of the aqueducts so she could swim while she was taking breaks.

An unsubtle reminder that I wanted her to take breaks when she needed them.

At the very least, having the additional mana helped a bit in the short term. Combined with the reduced cost of conversion for new plants, I had little reason not to start seeding the greenhouse.

Digging through our stockpile of nuts, berries, and assorted forest floor trail mix, I began to sort out which plants seemed like they had the most potential for exploitation, either for our own use or to refine into a sellable product at some point.

Tree nuts were out—the dome wasn’t that big, a fully-matured tree would put too much strain on the soil, and block out sunlight from the other crops below. Maybe I’d plant some up on the surface, come springtime. Berries, root vegetables, and herbs seemed to be wiser choices.

We had a fair selection to work with, but eventually I worked it down to a handful that seemed the most promising. Our climate wasn’t the most conducive to the kind of plants that immediately came to mind when I thought of ‘luxuries’—things like cacao, coffee, and spices—but we could still find a way to squeeze a profit off of what we had available.

With twenty-two mana coming in each day, I felt safe devoting the day’s gains to resynthesizing four plants.

❖ Nightberry ❖

Category: Plant Fruit of a bush from the northern reaches of the world. Has a very sweet taste. A delicacy to man and beast alike, this black-colored berry is a common ingredient in treats and desserts.

Resynthesize:

Cost: 5 MP

❖ Javelin Root ❖

Category: Plant A dark-purple root vegetable shaped similarly to the head of a spear. Carries a number of vital nutrients, though these require cooking to get the most of.

Resynthesize:

Cost: 5 MP

❖ Seamstress's Flower Seed ❖

Category: Plant Seed of a blue-flowered plant commonly farmed for its luxurious fibers, which can be spun into durable fabric. In some areas, its seeds are crushed into oil and added to meals.

Resynthesize:

Cost: 5 MP

❖ Ellomerian Mint Seed❖

Category: Plant Seed of a fragrant, broad-leafed herb with a refreshing taste to it. While agricultural spread is limited, it's a common treat to add to snacks among foragers when available. Resynthesize:

Cost: 5 MP

There wasn’t much of a point in planting multiple of a single crop for now when I could reap the benefits from growing a single cultivar to maturity first, ascending it along the way to produce higher quality seeds. As such, I chose to take a shallow but wide approach to the garden for now.

The plants I picked weren't just at random, either: I recognized them: blackberries, wild carrots, flax, and some kind of mint. Even if they weren't exactly the same, they were similar enough to startle me.

A small amount of preparation was required for these seeds, but [Horticulture I] guided my efforts. For example, the nightberry seeds needed to be removed from the fruit itself and then undergo scarification, something Ephi was able to help with using her teeth to gently cut an opening in the seed shell.

Each crop got its own plot for now, though it made the greenhouse look a bit silly to have five tiny sprouts scattered at random across the perimeter and so little else. As far as their traits went, I did the best I could with the choices given. The flax was the one I was happiest about--[Silverthread Fibers] sounded like a promising trait if it increased the produce quality in any ways. For the nightberries, I ended up taking a trait to enhance their production, and for the mint and javelin root I ended up having to take [Disease Resilience] as the best option on the board.

The berries and ‘carrots’ would be staple crops to help shore up Ephilia’s diet and potentially those of future employees as well. The plant known as Seamstress’s Flax, if it were anything like the flax I knew about, could provide us with a source of high-quality fiber for use in linens. The mint and the tea—those would be our cash crops.

And I had some plans brewing for those.

Doing business was generally a ‘simple’ thing: a customer wants a good or service, whoever provides that good or service gets paid for it.

The ‘getting paid’ was the vital part of that. Stealing a coin or two here and there from travelers might work on a small scale, but with Ephi now being the mouse equivalent of a monster truck I didn’t feel as confident in her ability to sneak into camps unseen. On top of that, the risks to her well-being were insane, having to contend with humans as well as any forest predators she might stumble upon.

If we wanted money—real money, not just pocket change, then we needed a business model.

Stumbling upon Cheshire, while absolutely horrifying in the moment, had almost been a blessing in some ways. He’d provided us with seed money, as well as seeds to grow a plant that might as well have been money.

I just needed to find a way to move it, once we hit the point we were producing. Settling for just growing to my quota wasn’t something I was interested in when the alternative was exploiting a market-wide vulnerability using one of the few big strengths I had.

But the forest was no place for money. Wolves don’t carry wallets and pine trees don’t hold purses. We needed people, as well as a way to communicate with them.

It wasn’t a lack of products that was keeping me from increasing my wealth, after all. Even base materials like lumber could be sold to the right buyers, and there was no shortage of forest around here to chop. No, it was a lack of buyers and ability to communicate. And if what little I’d discovered about being a core was to be believed, the last thing I wanted to do was advertise my presence either.

Even if I found a way to give Ephi speech and sent her out as a travelling salesmouse, that wouldn’t work. It said ‘core-touched’ right in her name, after all; if anyone else could see things the same way I could, her presence would be a neon billboard announcing my existence.

I’d already seen what could be done with the right magicks regarding that.

A business without any direct contact face-to-face contact, with a product or service that could move itself without a salesperson or communication.

All of a sudden, going back to stealing didn’t sound that bad.

Though with Ephi busy learning magic, even that was off of the table for now. Really, I was starting to feel the constraints of only having a single employee—err, a single employee capable of thought and movement. At the same time, forcibly shoving sapience onto living things for the sole purpose of giving them job offers felt shady.

Curious as to her opinion on it, I decided to check in on her while she wrapped up her ‘study’ session. Dusk had just passed, and the world outside was dark.

Our garden, on the other hand, was bathed in a pale, shifting light, bright enough that the sun might as well have not set at all. The starfont, submerged in the ground at the center of the room, had only grown brighter with each passing night as energy coalesced within it, casting tall shadows along the walls. If it was this bright after only a few days, I couldn’t help but wonder how much more severe it could get.

“Hey Ephi, I’ve been meaning to ask something. I’ve been thinking about looking into hiring another employee but I wanted another person’s opinion. It just feels a bit wrong though. This is probably a very stupid question, but do you ever regret being sapient?”

She nodded. “Yes, sometimes—though usually only when listening to your jokes.”

Well, I had made a few quips about her magically animating broomsticks to carry water yesterday—even after explaining the context to her, the most I’d gotten in response was an eyeroll.

“Yeah yeah, alright,” I groaned back, “You’ve made your point.”

I could practically feel an aura of smug satisfaction radiating over our link before she finally gave a proper answer, “But truthfully, no. Sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago when I look back at it. My memories from before you did aren’t always clear, but I’m happy here. Besides, you’ve left it up to me whether I stay or not, yes? If you’re so worried about your own moral compass, then why not simply extend the same offer to them as well?”

“Ascend them, then let them pick to take the job or walk away?”

“Sure, what’s the worst that could happen?”, she quipped back.

“I dunno, free-range sentient grizzly bears? It’s not entirely risk-free, and they’ll still be core-touched whether they choose to stay or don’t. Stick enough of them out there and someone will notice eventually.”

“Maybe, but that’s no longer a moral issue then, right? At that point it’s simply a matter of keeping ourselves hidden.”

She had a point there.

“…Though, one thing. Don’t replace me, okay?”, she chimed in a moment later, still refusing to break her focus on her practice.

“I wouldn’t dream of it—you’re my second-in-command, after all.”

Things went quiet for a moment between the two of us, so I turned my attention towards the starfont instead.

Whatever this thing was used for, it was starting to become a liability. It was starting to make our greenhouse stand out like a sore thumb in the dark, quiet woods—and a massive, crystal dome wasn’t exactly subtle to begin with.

The light had to be extinguished.

I waited until Ephi went to bed for the night before I began the process. While dumping it was certainly a possibility, as was exposing it to the sun and “neutralizing” this batch of liquid moonlight, I was admittedly curious to see what use I could make of it, if anything.

Supposedly, simply submerging material within the fountain would be enough for it to take effect, so it was just a matter of choosing what to use with it. Naturally, I made the fairly indecisive choice of selecting “all of them”.

The manamites got to work constructing a small block of each of my materials to the best of their abilities, about two inches wide on all sides. One made of stone, one made of wood, one compacted from soil into a clod of dirt, as well as a small patch of plant fiber weave and a sliver of crystal. One by one, I guided the mites to methodically lower the material into the pool, starting with the stone.

After a few moments of marinating, I could watch some kind of change taking place beneath the cloudy surface, so I pulled it back onto solid ground.

❖ Moonstone ❖ Earthen material saturated with raw lunar energy. Brittle, but beautiful. Extremely light-weight due to low density. Glows when exposed to otherwise dark areas.

What had once been featureless gray stone was now eerily-smooth and of a similar color to the starfont’s waters, glowing softly all on its own.

Curious, I continued with the test, dunking in each material one by one. Wood was easy and had a predictable result.

❖ Shimmerwood ❖ Wood infused with liquid moonlight and mana. Actively resists deterioration as a result of the passage of time. Resistant to all non-magical fire sources.

The clump of dirt began to break apart almost as soon as it was introduced to the pool, but for a brief moment I caught the tooltip’s name: [Stardust]. Trying additional times didn’t leave to me making much more progress, as it simply dissolved into the water.

Plant fiber simply floated atop the pool, slowly dissolving away into nothingness. It was crystal that had the most concerning reaction, though.

With the tiny shard of glass-like crystal held in its mandibles, the manamite delicately lowered itself towards the shimmering pool, light dancing around as if from a suspended disco ball. Then the tip of the gem made contact with the pool, the crystal flashing for a moment as it crackled and split. A high-pitched drone began to emanate from the crystal, as a tooltip appeared.

INFUSION FAILED

-INCOMPATIBLE MATERIAL (RAW CRYSTAL)

Dematerializing offered material.

It all happened in the blink of an eye. The manamite’s ephemeral body crystallized into a jagged, geometric shape of solidified light, at which point it simply fell from the air and into the water with a splash. The gem burst into a thousand pieces as it sunk into the water, dissolving in the span of mere seconds. Whatever had happened, it caused the pool to erupt into a scourging light, washing the entire garden in blinding whiteness. Then, the darkness returned.

FRAGMENT OF COALESCED WILL LVL: 2 NAME: "Boss"

Traits:

Skills:

[Horticulture I]

[Biology I]

[Creator's Insight]

[Mech. Engineering I]

[Textiles I]

[Transmutation I]

Features:

[Manamite Creation]

[Self-Synthesis]

[Manamite Specialization I]

[Material Infusion]

HP: 15 / 15 CATEGORY: Elemental MP: 24 / 100 SPECIES: Dungeon Core MP Rate: +22 daily SIZE: Tiny WEALTH: 5 XP: 55% STR VIT DEX INT WIS PER 0 5 0 9 7 8

Nascent heart of a world-born entity, crystallized from soul energy. Exerts control over a localized area.

Manamite Horde (64 / 180):

54 Manamites

1 Managermites (-3 MP/d)

Boiler Squad (5 / 20):

5 Manamites

Criteria for Next Ascension Tier:

Level: 5

Wealth: 25

Employees: 3

Cost: 100 MP

Facility: Prison Virtual Hoard:

➤779.4 Raw Stone

➤463.6 Loose Soil

➤0 Biological Material

➤345.1 Raw Lumber

➤23.0 Plant Fiber

➤0.3 Raw Crystal

That manamite was gone—actually gone. I’d never seen anything do that before.

With my experiment having come to an end and not wanting to sacrifice any more mites on further tests that might risk another eruption of light, I began the hasty process of dunking slabs of conjured stone into the pool one by one, adding this new [Moonstone] to my virtual hoard to deal with later. With each conversion, the water level itself never changed, but it grew dimmer and weaker each time. Once I’d taken enough, I sealed the doors shut.

From now on until I really found myself needing it again, the pool was closed.

Thankfully, the manamite horde recovered over the next few days as I bolstered it back up to an even eighty mites, nearly back to where I had been pre-ascension.

And Ephi managed to actually see some success with her magic, too.

After almost five days of focused effort, she’d somehow managed to actually rank the spell up—and I still didn’t have the first idea as to how, considering she hadn’t actually managed to cast anything even once up to this point.

At least until this morning, when she finally crossed the threshold. There wasn’t the same fanfare that came with a level-up or an ascension, simply a change in the tooltip that I could have missed if I hadn’t been watching.

While I was busy congratulating her, she simply lifted her front half up slightly, perched at a forwards angle as she reached a paw forwards towards the green, young stem of the tea plant. The energy in the air shifted and realigned, a process I could feel far easier than I could see it, and after a few moments of trepidation, the plant began to swell in size as if in a time lapse. Its roots spread, its stem thickened, and new offshoot branches began to split from the growing center of it.

She couldn’t maintain the spell for long, but she didn’t really need to. After a single minute of intense effort, she fell to the ground exhausted, though I could practically feel the pride she had in herself after accomplishing this. Activating [Core Bond I] to refill her SP, I couldn’t help but grin as I examined the tea plant, before turning my attention towards the rest of our greenhouse.

CORE-TOUCHED MOONDROP TEA SPROUT LVL: 0 NAME: undefined

Traits:

[Optimized Growth]

[Climate Acclimation]

Skills:

HP: 6 / 6 CATEGORY: Plant

Employee MP: 0 / 0 SPECIES: Tea Shrub SP: 0 / 0 SIZE: Small XP: 0% GENDER: --- STR VIT DEX INT WIS PER 0 3 0 0 0 0

A nearly-mature Moondrop Tea Shrub, imported from Arrol. Infused with auric power emanating from a core. Fully Mature in: 22 Hours. Criteria for Next Ascension Tier:

Cost: 15 MP

Tomorrow would be the day. I'd give the tea plant one more ascension and hope for the best, then Ephi and I could start trying to prune it to produce some clones.