On how mana corps learned to “game” the system.

Two Postulates. The system pays higher prices for “High End Booze” than anything else; The system has a hidden store that no race has direct access to.

We know this store exists based on the “quest” system and rule of *equivalent* (heh) exchange for quest rewards.

Manacorps have learned through intensive testing, the system rewards more for large amounts of high quality booze than anything else. It is cheaper to make a whole whiskey plant and then sell barrels of whiskey to the system, than it is to make some of the “equivalent” items it will give you.

How do we access this store may I ask? By abusing the quest system. Take this scenario. Employee A makes a simple quest for another employee B. A offers the barrel of whiskey as a reward. Employee B completes the simple task then is rewarded with roughly a tier 4-5 item!

Oh obviously some of the intent is lost by simple tasks. “Hard” quests sometimes get a larger bonus to the quest reward, as do quests given by ones that really need it. The system prefers quests that “Avenge someone's killed father” to ones that “satisfy my thirst with a glass of water” but even with our lower effort quests, profit can be found!

Some of the items we have managed to loot from the system this way are almost masterwork quality! For just booze! This is a major loophole!

By ageing in various magical woods and metals, infusing with rare items, as well as making as many different flavours of alcohol we can find - manacorps has determined the quality of the rewards can be maintained nearly indefinitely.

Hopefully, the system never finds out we are cheating it this way, as our alcohol department is currently one of the highest-grossing.

Excerpt from manacorps internal memo. “System Loophole #2 in a previously believed infallible system!”

Innearth really wanted to scout around his dungeon but…there wasn’t a single ascended monster that could do so.

The next item on his list was to explore his newfound Void affinity. If he was being honest with himself this was what he was looking forward to the most.

How do I go about finding void mana to copy?

Innearth tried looking in holes and “empty” spaces but didn’t see a hint of any Void mana.

Yeah I mean I guess they are full of air. Maybe it’s an even higher resolution?

Picking an empty area Innearth stared harder and harder. Rank 1 mana types were laid bare and then superseded by rank 2. Finally, nearly before giving up at the edge of what Innearth could concentrate up to, the faintest of hints of a third type of mana became known.

Rank 3 mana didn’t seem to be clinging to anything like the previous ranks.

Instead by staring deep enough at the world, Innearth found the barest hints of several mana types existing as a soup together. Like coloured grains of sand blown into a strong wind and then slowed down, bits floated slowly in a chaotic manner. It was hard to separate the strands of time and space that seemed less like they were attached to the world and more like they were holding it together.

I thought opposites made chaos and madness? Having them all together means 2 types of madness right? Is the true state of our world chaos?

Innearth tried to feel out the mana types. They all felt just a bit too far out of reach and while the Void spoke to him, it was the rarest of the particles in his area.

Faint specks of nothingness hidden between countless faint specs of “stuff”.

Finally, Innearth started to feel like he could apply the flavour to himself. This time it was less of an intelligent process and more of an instinctual one. He could explain (badly to non Dungeon Cores but explain nonetheless) how to convert your personal mana into the fire affinity or even the kinetic one.

However, all he could say about Void was “it just happened”.

Pulling equal amounts of the surrounding space and his personal mana together led to a lump of Void mana in the air. The mana was colourless but seemed to warp all the light that passed through it like a lens.

Hmm…this feels wrong.

Void mana wasn’t really something you made and then threw at stuff. It was something you built into an area or object.

Letting the blob disperse Innearth tried again this time with a goal in mind.

That dust-filled slag of a hallway that’s plugged with growing material. It should make a good target!

Focusing on the hallway Innearth weaved Void mana together into the very space and watched as the section of hall seemed to shrink down, lower and lower.

As everything shrunk, its density grew higher and higher – the mana in the hall was concentrated into a smaller area and the expanding material tried to start growing again – seeming to scream as it realized it was getting smaller.

The shrinking was currently unevenly distributed and the middle of the hallway had overlapping sections so it was the first to break.

The void grew.

Shrinking down into a singularity, a point of space became a nexus of absolute darkness. Nothing escaped its grasp and while it didn’t “pull everything towards it” like a black hole would – anything that touched it was squished down into nothing and banished. A faint hissing sound grew larger as air leaked out of the hole in the world.

…wow.

Innearth didn’t feel any sense of danger from the void. It was his. It was growing right now – but only because he wished so. He had complete control over this section of space, it was his mana, it was his affinity.

Watching the point grow larger and larger as if in a trance Innearth felt…content.

If I had this, I could have wiped the demon out on my own. I’m sure of it.

The void grew.

Finally grabbing the singularity well past the point others would have panicked at, Innearth tried combining it with Iron from his inventory.

The mana ate into his material and needed a huge amount of it before it stuck; but finally, he had created a bar of void iron.

What should I do with this? I kind of just made it because I could…

Innearth made a magma spider while he could still mould the material and replaced both the machinery at the tips of the legs as well as the pincers with void iron.

The iron ate away at everything he tried to attach to it and Innearth replaced many of the magma pathways with tubes of healing life organs to constantly heal the damage.

I want to add more, but it's annoying to keep fixing the damage while I think of stuff. I’m eating through quite a bit of material just waiting so here we go!

Giving the void spider life, Innearth watched as it sunk its legs deep into the wall and climbed slowly achingly up to the corner of the ceiling.

Hmm. I mean I know it's being eaten into but it's really in pain huh. He spawned a regular magma spider using the system to see how it compared. Making sure to try and even it out by removing the bat.

Hey, fight each other for me will you?

They didn’t seem quite as hesitant to fight each other as Innearth’s previous attempts at making the same monster fight.

Jumping forwards the magma spider scaled the wall towards its void cousin who seemed to be more interested in trying to deal with the pain it was under due to existing.

How do monsters feel pain? I don't think I've thought of that before. Is it just if they get damaged?

An exposed body was offered and the magma spider took the opportunity to stab a burning dripping spike of a leg into its side. I don't think it's too important of a tangent. I'm losing focus and I wanted to see this!

Returning to paying attention to the fight Innearth was just in time to watch the void variant make a move. Shaking off the attack it finally focused on its opponent, swiping a single leg out.

The amount of force it did so with should really not have done anything. Its speed was slow and if it had made any movements previously it would have been dodged. Yet hit it did. The void-tipped leg melted through the side of the magma spider like a hot knife gliding smoothly through butter. Like a peeled... radioactive orange. An orange glow of light and heat radiated out from the gash. Small beads of magma forming on the lowest edge.

Twisting backwards in shock, the magma spider tried attacking once more this time wary of any retaliation – bits of magma dripping out of its side to fall to the ground below. A stream of molten dots speckling the ground in a sizzle while it tried to heal.

Good show! Hit em again!

Innearth hadn’t had this much fun watching his monsters fight each other in a while. He had grown bored of every other fight that happened in his dungeon normally and needed new stimulation.

The spiders jumped around in a dance on the ceiling – each time their light gravity frame and kinetic pull bringing them back to the ceiling as they circled one another.

The void spider was…much much stronger. It only needed a single well-placed strike to end this farce – but because it was in so much pain the spider didn’t have any reflexes. It wasn’t fully focused on the battle and kept having to stop and take a moment to rest.

Finally having enough the void spider lashed out spearing its cousin and calming down to nurse its wounds in the middle of the roof.

Signs of their battle littered the ground below while a curious Dungeon Core reviewed the battle.

Is there a better way to use Void mana? I don’t think I want to have all my monsters constantly eating themselves and in pain… I guess this was a good enough attempt at experimenting with the new rank – I even got my free “use the new rank of mana” level! It took so long to reach level 33 and I’m already 34!

Opening the new market to search for information on Void mana and Innearth found a nice guide on the process.

It cost 3000AMU but information was important and that was less than 30 minutes of his time nowadays – assuming he didn't use it for anything else – and 30 minutes was nothing in comparison to his current timescale.

SO, YOU WANT TO CONTROL THE VOID? WELCOME BROTHER!

THIS INFORMATION IS PRICELESS AND DISCOVERED OVER A MILLENNIA BY THE STRONGEST GROUP OF DUNGEON CORES. THOSE WHO CHOSE THE GREAT VOID AS THEIR AFFINITY! YOU CHOSE WELL.

THE MAIN CONCEPTS ARE PRETTY SIMPLE. YOU CAN MAKE TWO KINDS OF USEFUL MATERIALS. HAVE YOU NOTICED THE VOID DOESN’T CONSUME ITS CARRIER? IF YOU MAKE A SILICON VOID MATERIAL. THEN MAKE SURE TO WRAP IT IN A NON-VOID SILICON MATERIAL TO ACT AS A BUFFER. THIS MATERIAL WILL EAT AWAY AT ALL MATTER IT TOUCHES EXCEPT THE ONE IT'S ATTACHED TO.

THE SECOND KIND OF MATERIAL IS MUCH HARDER TO CREATE AND HARD TO EXPLAIN BUT I’LL TRY AND PROVIDE AN OVERVIEW. BY TWISTING THE VOID AND ITS INTENT YOU CAN CREATE A MATERIAL THAT ONLY CONSUMES MATERIALS LIKE IT. BY MAKING AN IRON SPIKE, IT WILL ONLY CONSUME IRON. BY MAKING A CARBON SPIKE, IT WILL ONLY EAT AWAY AT CARBON.

AT FIRST, THIS SEEMS WEAKER, BUT BY FOCUSING ON ONE ELEMENT THE RESULTS ARE MUCH MORE PRONOUNCED. THIS VOID VARIATION WILL EVEN CONSUME MATERIAL THAT’S CLOSE BY, WITH A FIELD EXTENDING OUT FROM IT. I URGE YOU TO TRY AND FIGURE IT OUT!

FINALLY, A CONCEPT THAT HAS SOME LIMITED USES IS TO PLAY WITH THE FIRST PART OF VOID MANIPULATION – SHRINKING. AS A USER OF THE VOID YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO MAKE A MUCH LARGER ITEM AND THEN SHRINK IT DOWN AND COMPRESS IT BEYOND WHAT YOU COULD MANUALLY.

FOR AN EXAMPLE OF THIS, PLEASE REFER TO THE VOID FLY SCHEMATIC LOCATED .

Faint remnants of Innearth's desire to do everything himself remain but are thoroughly squashed as he follows the “fly” example and buys it as well.

Not being able to print it without using all the techniques once himself, Innearth starts the design.

It’s a round ball roughly 10cm in diameter with massive wings that have some incredibly well made joints Innearth hasn’t come across before.

The middle contains two cores – one void and one pure – and its whole body is solid iron compressed as much as he could handle.

A large void iron spike comes out of the fly’s front and a network of gravity bones keep the whole creature light.

It's weird though. This creature really should not be able to fly. Even with the gravity materials, I can’t see how those wings help it move…

Ah well.

The next step was important. He was to try as hard as he could to shrink the whole creature evenly. It was best to do this before he gave it life and not to push it too much. The schematic step was a factor of 10. “Try and shrink this down to 1cm”

Carefully pulling space inwards slowly ever so slowly so he didn’t make a singularity. Innearth watched as the “fly” grew smaller and smaller.

He messed up a bit – the tip of one of the wings was crushed completely – but for the most part, it was a success.

I'm on a roll with Void mana! Proof it was made for me!

As the fly shrunk, the mana contained within was concentrated and the material became harder and harder.

Some of the “Matter” was lost – it was inevitable using Void mana – but the parts that stayed were compressed to lengths no material could naturally go.

Giving Life to the small creature it flapped quickly and confidently as it took to the air.

Forgetting what the purpose of this monster was he watched it buzz around in the air before flying down the hall.

Out of the magma halls that Innearth was doing most of his experimentation in this fly kept going down further and further stopping for nothing until it reached one of the lowest sections of his dungeon.

It stopped near his crystal pool seeming curious by the pool snake and flittered around a water slime as if wondering how something so weak could exist at the same level as the rest of his crystal cavern monsters.

The fly continued exploring a bit and then settled down in one of Innearth's “crystal pillar” rooms.

Well…Yeah, I guess that’s fine. I did want it to fight something – anything – just so I had a vague strength basis.

I wanted to figure out how strong it is because I put in a lot of mana into such a small creature I feel like it's not worth it to spawn them everywhere if it's weak as well…

Anyways what next!

…

Innearth spent some time adding void parts to all his monsters just because he could. He couldn’t really get into it, however. Not while he was waiting for adventurers to come. Not while he was waiting for the rest of his friends to catch up.

One portion of his concentration at his chats constantly Innearth waited for the other cores to brighten and show they existed once again. Somehow when waiting time seemed to slow to a standstill. It felt like weeks but had only taken 3 more days before everyone had caught up.

Innearth: Hey Amy! Have you found anyone to make our group chat yet?

Amy: Yeah I have actually he’s making it now.

Innearth: !!!

Amy: Yes yes. I don't see why you are this excited but yep. It's being made. Just wait a few more minutes

Finally!