{Lattice Bank} would be easy enough, I likely already had enough to get it. I would use it to recreate the portal, though, so I could take skills from adventurers without them dying, if the latter would even give those skills to me at all.
{Fusion} would need me to fuse something, obviously, but I would definitely need to use two potential skills simultaneously in order to get general fusion.
{Command} required me to have creatures to command, but I could potentially make it work with a mob and Marcy.
{Mana/Lattice Manipulation} I also likely already had well in hand, but It wouldn’t hurt to try to manipulate a lattice without using my mana.
Finally, {Domain} would probably require a lot of work. It was a good thing I had no time limit, because this would take a while.
Actually, could I do anything to help with that? I might be able to use multithreading…?
I tried to focus on multiple things at once, but it would require more of a push than that. I tried Breaking a lattice and making another one at the same time, and it almost got there. Then, I tried Making, Breaking, and Manifesting all at once, and that finally did it. I had three viewpoints, with no problems. Each used all of my mental capacity, but they rotated on and off so quickly that they were basically always on.
She had turned a deep orange, almost red.
[Split my mind into three threads.]
[...I cast the lattice and manifested it?]
[The organization of mana nodes that denotes a specific object.]
[Let’s backup a bit. What is the rune for amethyst?]
It was just a larger engraving of the amethyst lattice.
[Intriguing, I’ll have to test its efficiency.]
I started with the rune, engraved across my geode. It was certainly less efficient than directly manifesting, but if I could engrave it at the perfect size, so that the rune was sized to the lattice…
Yes, it was not more efficient than direct manifestation, but it could be entirely automated by setting up a subroutine in my mind (apparently, I can do that, whaddaya know).
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
I had no use for making amethyst right now, so I refilled the artificed square of wall, demanifested the extra amethyst into its natural shape, and returned to making skills.
Actually, hold that thought. I need to make a command skill, and I need to use monsters to get it. I wait until a random small critter walks into my entrance, but that risks the bandits finding me far too much. So, what monsters I make with what I had now? Good thing for me, I already have a floor theme and an idea for a monster.
When I opened up the entrance to make the grate, I absorbed a stump that had been across the top of my hole. It was lifeless for now, but I could fix that with a small application of enhanced germs. It was rickety, but it worked. Now, to optimize it.
I needed to fuse the stump with the germs. I tried to do this with just the two at first, but the germs needed something to act as muscles before they could form a mind to control the stump. I had a few ideas for this, though. I had no samples of muscle (yet), but I could modify a bit of moss so that it grew in the pattern of the spatial aspect mana. This had the effect of letting the moss compress on itself, and also confirmed my theory that runes were just the shape of the lattice so that the mana could form into lattices on its own.
[Enlighten me.]
[Well, it’s pretty simple. The rune is just the lattice engraved on a surface so that the mana can take the shape of said lattice. I can see why you don’t know the lattice for spatial mana, it’s a 3D representation of a 4D object, so it would be pretty hard to engrave.]
[...Like this.] I sent over all of the info I had on mana lattices.
[I think I might need to zoom out then. And maybe you could try to zoom in on some aspected mana.]
She was right. If you zoomed out from how I looked at mana, the aspected mana did just look like larger, “colored” motes.
< This is the most groundbreaking discovery about mana in… millennia. No, This could revolutionize everything!
…
I need to hide it. If someone like gets his hands on it, untold destruction would follow.>
[Sure, let’s do that. Can anyone see on a microscopic level?]
I sent the concept.
[Okay, so I’m good.]
Anyway, back to work!
The spatial moss could retract, sure, but now I needed some way to get the signals from the hive mind to the moss. Easy enough, there are a few fungi around here, and one of them is deeply symbiotic with a specific bacteria, because that bacteria breaks down nutrients in the dirt that the fungus can’t, while feeding on the fungus’s waste. Now, I need some way to make the bacteria into a hive mind. Easy enough, I’ll use enhanced amethyst, henceforth called core crystal.
Now to put them all together. Enhancing the bacteria and clumping it together, encasing it in the monster core (different from my core by virtue of being spherical instead of cuboid), the fungus then connects to the moss, which is then controlling the now flexible roots of the stump. Behold! The Shambling Ent!
Now, I need variants. Can’t have all of them have the same weaknesses. The Shambling Ent will be a basic enemy, maybe three in the first room. In the second, I will introduce the archetypes. The RevenEnt will be flatter, thinner, more similar to a massive splinter than a stump, and will use piercing damage rather than blunt force. The EntThrall will be ambushes, like spiked nets attached to a weeping willow crown, hanging on the ceiling. And the BruEnt will take the of the damage! Basically a wall made of “living” wood.
Finally, the boss: the Ent Lich. A large, semi-sentient tree, with RevenEnt adds, a trunk based on the BruEnt, and boughs like an EntThrall.
But will they respawn?
I kill the Shambler, and its lattice returns to my core, staying separate from the base Shambler lattice. When I remanifest it in the same spot, it goes right back to what it was doing, what little memories it has still intact. However, when I crush it, the memories go away. The non-sentient monsters, I can just set up runes to respawn them as soon as I figure out what the logic gates look like, but the ones with souls, I want to stay. Therefore, I need respawn crystals.
Should I have shorter chapters, or keep the cliffhangers?