The core room is currently on floor 11, the first of the [very low] ranked floors and the deepest the General has available at the moment. The room looks incomplete - a large part of the pattern on the floor is missing tiles, one doorway on the wall leads to a stone wall because the next floor doesn't exist yet and several columns throughout the room look as if they're completely missing their decoration.

Instead there are several cushions and stools scattered around the core node, with three naga and four lizardpeople watching the illusion that the General has cast into the center of the room - the illusion showing the Sky Arrows how they get their clothes in order again after climbing out of the partially submerged northwest rooms of floor 4. The still glowing silver fox and its guards are under a desk to the side, where another lizardwoman sits to record the conversation. A fifth lizardman touches me and the core node to repeat what I transmit to him for everyone to hear.

"We can't do anything at the moment to find out how they got that knowledge of me being higher than [very high] in rank, so keep a note but let's continue. Does anyone think we need to do something about that ice magic freezing the maze? It seems to be a rather high ranked magic, so there might not be a need to handle it for regular parties later."

At that Orslesh, the Shaman of the lizardmen tribe answers first. "I agree, that is a rather high powered spell and not something to be expected from regular surfacers entering. Similiar skills or magic will be used by other high-ranked adventurers when they want to break through to deeper floors, but we don't have to worry about that until the portal system activates with the next [safe] floor. Then they will go through to trigger the teleport access to that second safe floor and be able to skip the lower floors later, leaving them to low-ranked trainees.

But I have another question, core: Why are you this calm? All system knowledge says that cores often panic when faced with higher ranked adventurers going through their defenses."

"It probably has something to do with the fact that he knows they have been commanded not to reach him..." comes from Gunny Parkinson.

I'm silent for a while before answering "Yes and no. Knowing that they will abort before reaching the last core room does help, but a lot of it is also experience from Earth.

I know that there will be death in my floors and that I have to kill people sooner or later. As the saying on my old home goes - any soldier knows that you can't make omelette without breaking some eggs. So I do aim to make the floors as dangerous as reasonable under the system rules. But any good officer also knows that you need to preserve the lifes of your soldiers and of civilians as best as possible. And any good general knows that this also goes for the enemy if you want anything long-term.

Military power alone can never hold control for long-term. That is a lesson all military powers of my past have learned in places like Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq. It was especially bad in Afghanistan where my side send in black ops to train the so-called Taliban in military knowledge while they were fighting against the Russians, only to have them turn against all sides with that knowledge after the Russians left their country.

So I know that I can't win by simply pushing against their power. Unfortunately I still don't have something else to add into the equation. I need more time and knowledge about the situation to find a long-term solution. And that is why I like the concept of professional evaluation teams that will prevent idiots from carelessly entering. Because that will also prevent another spiral of anger and hatred that would only cause problems long term."

Reena the huntress of their tribe steers our attention back to the screen "Look, they finished studying the traps and killed the giant crab in the last room. They seem to be lost at where to go next."

"No, they just found it. But what gave the entrance to the next floor away is the fact that I'm constantly casting this illusion. They traced the resulting tiny LifeForce wave to the bottom of the small lake in that cavern and are now preparing to dive in. Let's see how they handle the next floor."

I watch how they take some variants of diving goggles or diving masks to cover their eyes out of their backpacks and then jump into the lake, diving to the bottom where the corridors fork into a true maze with underwater plants hiding the way as well as the crabs and barracudas defending the floor.

This will be a nice obstacle even for the Sky Arrows. Hmm - why didn't they add some breathing equipment as well, only goggles?

We watch a few minutes how the Sky Arrows basically float through all obstacles and opposition without any problem, not even needing any highranked skills or spells. I become more irritated the longer this goes on.

What? How? What's going on?

"How can they speak and coordinate their actions underwater? Park even casts his spells without problems - how is that possible?"

Adria, craftswoman and head of the naga population asks me confused "Why not? Why should being underwater stop them from speaking or spellcasting? You didn't place any effect to stop that there, or did you?"

"No, but they need to breathe to talk - speaking of which they didn't even use breathing gear, just googles"

"Breathe? I don't know that word, what does it mean?" comes from Ivri, the naga caretaker.

What?? "One moment please. I think we all only understand part of this discussion. Adria, Ivri, Meriol - please come to the node and touch me so I can speak to you directly. The Lizard spawn can still repeat what I say to the others, but we need to clear up this misunderstanding first.

Ivri, we never had problems communicating with each other before, and now you tell me that you don't know what the word 'breathe' means? Is that a translation problem between languages or what?"

"No one of us knows what the word 'breathe' means - or 'translation' or 'languages', that are also words you haven't used before, General Core."

"One moment, let me think first." What the hell? They also don't know what a language is? OK, let's start with that.

"Language is a word to describe the set of all words everyone in a population uses to talk with each other. Different populations that are far away from each other can have developed different languages, that means different sets of words to talk to each other. Translating is the action of changing the words from one set to the words from another so that people who don't understand the other words can now understand what was said. Can you understand that concept?"

The fighter Meriol answers to this "yes, of course - but there was never a need for such a thing. Everyone in the sphere has always used the same words for as long as the system existed. It is the same set of words - the same 'language' that you have spoken to us in as well since you created us. The last few minutes are the first time when you used words that were not known to us."

"It has to have been that [Xenotic Conversion], General" Gunny speaks up "It must have given us the language without us ever understanding that this happened. But I think that is secondary for now compared to the failure of the underwater floor."

Yes - I can think of some uses for secure communication if I ever manage to teach other languages to someone in the sphere, but Gunny is right.

"Gunny is right, everyone, so back to what 'Breathing' is. Usually everyone has to breathe to survive, and being underwater should have prevented that. I put a lot of Mana into creating that water because I thought it would stop them from breathing and cause further delays and slowdowns when they try to get around that limitation."

The three naga look at each other, still mostly confused. Adria asks me "OK, that explains why you did that but still doesn't explain what that breathing is that they have to do."

I try to explain again "You need to breathe to take in air, and you need air to both live and speak with each other."

"Ah" Ivri looks as she finally understands "So this 'air' is a Need, like the Need for food, water and rest? And 'breathing air' is the word to replenish that Need, like 'eating food', 'drinking water' or 'sleeping for rest'?

That explains a lot, but I've never heard of that Need - not even demons have any Need for this air. It has to be something that is only required by you Xenotics who live even lower in existance than the demons."

At this gunny stands up and goes to one of the torches in the wall. He examines it and then speaks "That is probably the easiest explanation for anyone born here in the Sphere. General, the torches give no smoke either - I don't think that there is any air around here."

So we are in a vacuum without even realising it due to that [Xenotic Conversion]? What else is messed up here?

Good that I haven't wasted any mana on experiments with steam yet - probably better if I try electricity first since lightning magic exists around here. But on the other hand I should really start a lot of basic experiments as soon as the mana regeneration block is gone, comparing physics might show the key to what's going on.

"Ok, everyone. It looks like I really messed up with my plans on floor five. To prevent that from happening again I would like your opinion on an idea I have for floors twelve to eighteen. I can't build them at the moment, I'll have to wait until I can level up to get rid of the EXP-Overcharge that still remains.

If everything goes as intended they will be a big stopper and delay after they are all finished - but I have to admit that until they are all placed, it will actually be easier to reach me. We'll have to...

Hey - what's going on there under the desk?"

[Ping]

System Processing "New Entity" complete

remaining mutation energy removed from core "New Entity" fusing of incompatible requirements between class core and beast core complete

assigning new classification to core type "New Entity" as "demi-core beast/class"

demi-core will be fixed and unchanging like a beast core, but contain intelligence and some skill abilities like a class core. Experience collection as regular.

The glow on the silver fox stopped - and going from that message it will become intelligent but with only limited abilities compared to regular people.

New Template gained

Name set as "Kitsune" based on the memory of core "general". Kitsune

Rank and Type

[Limited] Cored Spawn

Placement Cost

600 MP (includes cost for demi-core)

Description Kitsune are sapient foxes that have some limited abilities with Illusion magic. They can create the illusion of any humanoid race around their body, but it will remain an illusion and not change their body.

Restrictions The Kitsune can never be created with a placeholder spawn core The demi-core can never be replaced by beast or class cores Abilities Animal Body (Fox)

Sapient

Personal Illusion

Light Illusion

[Limited] Mind [Limited] Body maximum rank [????] may uprank demi-core if conditions are met

may learn skills of [Limited] rank if conditions are met

Sky Arrows PoV, Leader Ranger Tom Blueeye

"This floor is easy, just a bunch of fishy and crabby distractions" Corvin calls to his friends.

"A [very low] ranked adventurer wouldn't call this 'easy'" Gladia answers "The underwater plants are perfect hiding places for those barracuda swarms. But I agree that the dungeon has not yet shown any special trick on this floor, not like it caused problems for us on the first three floors."

None of the Sky Arrows has any problem continuing the discussion while they were plowing through any opposition on the floor. D'vol walks halfway up a wall while contributing to it. "And the herbs scattered between those regular plants are a good treasure as well for alchemists and healers, but not as excessive as the silver foxes on the first two floors."

"I still don't trust this floor. The dungeon was too cunning in the previous floors to simply play nice now, there has to be some kicker ahead" shouts Holgun.

All Sky Arrows are wary as they agree with Holgun, but nothing special happens on the floor. One of the [Embarrassing Pitfall Traps Level 0] as the system calls the outhouses is found even here, but completely useless as it is as flooded as the rest of the floor. The Sky Arrows only comment on how lucky they were that this was never used before the floor was flooded, then they continue to swim deeper. And after a fight against a giant crab that retained its bonespear in the last room, the Sky Arrows climb out of a pool to another stairway down.

After a short rest to clean up their equipment and stow away the diving masks the party continues down to the next floor. Gladia checks her mapping. "After two water-themed floors below the two levels of Mapping Hell we now approach the sixth level. It seems to be a high level as these stairs go down farther than usual. I hope - hey, Tom, check this."

She points to a place on the wall where a number of black lines interrupt the masonry of the stairwall. The lines go around the entire stairwell and are between half of a millimeter and three millimeter thick. Looking at them seems to cause some form of vertigo in everyone.

Tom and D'vol check the lines as well "It almost looks like a wall where the environment was retracted from the dungeon - but that would never be so small and collapse the floor anyway. What could this be?"

"I don't know but it can't be good considering the rest of this dungeon. Everyone, be extra careful and let's continue down to floor six."

The stairs go a lot deeper before they can finally step away and onto a stone masonry platform to a sight no one expected.

"What by the Seven Gods is this???"