IWUAaDNW: Initiative 6.4

“That’s… way too much,” Jaya told Amnassah with a shake of her head. “There’s gotta be at least three times as much mana coming out of her than last time. No way those pissant little drains should have been able to block this much for this long.”

Had it grown that much? Why, though? My income hadn’t increased that much, the only thing that was way higher than before was––oh.

Was it…?

I spent the next few minutes breaking my spawning rooms, and watching as my upkeep fell down to far more manageable levels. Then, for good measure, I also broke the stone floor upgrades that were ruining my defensive plans. Once that was done, I called for Jaya’s attention, and when I had it––and Amnassah’s––I showed her herself turning valves back on.

She did so, and the light didn’t turn back on right away.

“Huh. That’s… did you do something?”

I nodded at her, then motioned toward the drain, telling her to open more of the valves, which she did. It took three more valves before the light turned back on. She closed the last one back.

“Okay… so how’d you do that?”

“I am actually curious about this as well,” asked Amnassah.

I showed them what I’d done, as well as my own suspicion.

The amount of mana that was coming out of me was based on my daily upkeep, and not on my income.

“That makes a lot of sense,” Amnassah said. “Pure mana may be ‘pure’ in comparison to the mana one may find inside the pools of individuals, but it isn’t entirely free of essence. Mostly, it contains minute amounts of what we alchemists call biomic essence… for instance, when Miss Taylor first appeared here, this land was desolate and dry, and now here,” he motioned around himself, at the grass field that surrounded me. “This grass had most likely existed here before; grass tends to come back from the dead quite easily. But the insects? The insects were spontaneously generated from the biomic essence contained within Taylor’s pure mana. It is entirely likely that we will eventually experience outbreaks of pixie mist and perhaps the spontaneous birth of pixie-type creatures, as well as birds, around us at some point.”

“You’re talking about dungeon biomes,” Jaya said. “Little blotches of life that resemble a specific floor.”

“Precisely… well not precisely, it doesn’t resemble the floor as much as both the floor and it fit within the same… essential flavor of pure mana, so it speak.” Turning back to me, he said, “If what you’re saying is correct, then the biomic essence comes from your rooms and minions. Pure mana––truly pure mana… shall we call it, raw life essence, flows from you and enters your rooms and minions, and then once a day it is expressed in a singular release of mana, colored by those minions. That’s… truly ingenious.” He smiled. “Truly, dungeons are magnificent machines.”

Then he paused. “Ah… not that… I’m saying that you’re in any way mechanical, Miss Taylor. Of course.”

I waved off his concerns, while thinking hard myself. It… fit? Kind of? The only thing I really had questions about was the double-cost malus my minions experienced if they were starving. I pointed this out to Amnassah.

“Ah… well, yes, but tell me, your minions, they eat food they obtain from yourself, correct?” I nodded. They did. “And those sources of food increase your output?” My upkeep, and… kind of? On my first floor, bugs came out of the ground and walls, but they came out of rooms, which had an upkeep cost. Pixie-types looked like they were just fine eating from the mist, with the exception of the pixies themselves which I fed from balls of honey from my first floor, and pools of nectar from the pixie fountain. Both the honey store and the fountain had upkeep costs. As for my third floor, I fed my birds from the deco bugs on floor 2, for the most part, which grew out of the bushes and trees. The same logic here applied for floor 1.

It… sort of fit? I nodded.

Amnassah smiled. “Then, the food they eat already contains that biomic essence I’ve been talking about. It’s likely a more effective method of absorbing pure essence than having it fed directly, hence why you are encouraged to do so, like it is technically possible to live from pure mana, just… very unpleasant.”