He was a little worried upon witnessing that face again; his anger rose up once more but he took a moment to inspect before acting rashly. While the figure in the ball looked much like the person, it appeared significantly younger than when they had first met, and the scars were mostly gone. The man seemed to have regressed, and perhaps the process would continue, but the question is why?
The goblin decided to look into the other flecks of light, starting with the flickering golden light. He looked into it; within was the figure of a woman with golden hair. She was faceless but the goblin felt an odd sense of familiarity with her. She appeared to still be an adult. He then moved to the little flecks of light; he moved to the largest one, and he saw the elder wolf from before.
Except now, the wolf was visibly de-aging, scars fading, and ferociousness as well; he reached out with his mind, trying to touch upon the speck of light, but it violently shook at his prodding. He turned to another smaller speck of light; within it was a beetle. He saw it return to a cocoon, then into a grub, and finally revert into an egg, which then faded, only leaving the empty speck of light.
Amand rushed into the hall and shimmied to the section containing the books written in Celestial; he had perused the titles here but hadn’t gotten to reading them but seeing this made him think of the name of one of the tomes. He found it and pulled it from the shelf; the golden letters shone in the dim lighting: On Souls and Eternity. It was generally believed that upon death, a person’s soul would be attracted to the appropriate afterlife.
The virtuous would go to Celestia and the villainous to Hell, but supposedly it was far more complicated than most churches preached. The material plane was unique since it lacked the capability to house souls outside a living being without extreme forbidden magic but the extradimensional planes were better to maintain souls. This is why so many religions, gods, and afterlives existed.
Since the dungeon was an extradimensional plane, it could house souls after they passed. The question of where souls came from—no one knew. So the dungeon would passively harvest souls from those that die here, and it seemed the soul’s strength depended on their willpower. So why were most of the souls regressing instead of remaining as they were at death? He went back to the dungeon core and focused in on the soul lights once again; he looked back at the old wolf, which had returned to its prime; the intruder was still about the same.
“Can I stop the process?” Amand wondered, and he moved his focus to one of the insect souls within. This one was a moth, but it quickly regressed to its cocoon phase. He willed it to remain as it was, and he sat there; a good amount of time passed, and it remained as it was. He looked back at the wolf, which had become closer to freshly grown, and he decided to will it to stop degrading as well.
The only way to confirm if all this worked was through time so he moved to his daily spear practice; he dropped off his bag in the main room and went to the training hall. He blew through all his pent-up excitement at the recent discovery; he spent far more time practicing the spear today, followed by a bath and dinner. As he was returning to the main room, he decided to go for another book on the shelf. The book, Magic Metals and Their Mettle. He was curious of the gleaming dagger he found in the shattered remains of the dungeon.
Grabbing the book, he headed towards his chair, not forgetting to grab the dagger along the way. He examined it again; the blade was very shiny with a bluish-green tinge to it. He tried to flex the blade; he could easily snap iron with his bare hands at this point and the metal barely bent even under his full strength.
Strong, light, and sharp, it was obviously of high quality. He began to flip through the book. Why are there so many metal types? There were even alloys? Mixtures of metals and different ratios—how was he going to identify the metal of this dagger? Well, he could try mimicking the metal; he imagined it but when a block of it started to form in his hand, his mana started to plummet and all that he could form was a sliver of said metal. Magic materials were harder to produce so this metal must be magical in nature.
He flipped through the book; even knowing the metal was magical reduced the options down to a third. He then looked for the color; luckily, each metal seemed to have unique properties. There were some that grew more heavy when supplied with mana or self-repaired. Some could amplify spells cast through them. The most likely suspect for this blade was mithril, the sharpest and lightest of the magic metals but slightly less durable and strong as the others. It was the more common of magic materials but would serve excellently for his next goal.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Before he could continue with that, he needed to have sufficient mana reserves, and he was growing weary regardless. He decided to get ready for bed. He grabbed a new novel to enjoy as he lulled himself to sleep. The god of knowledge visited him in his sleep this night; the old man rambled on and on to him, but he couldn’t understand a single word of it. The god had a mad excitement in his eyes and all the goblin could do was nod his head and pretend he understood. This made the old timer happy and he patted Amand’s head.
The goblin awoke the next day, a little sorer than normal. But he was brimming with mana this morning and he was ready to begin his greatest experiment yet. First he checked in on one of the souls that he had decided to keep; the adolescent wolf and cocooned bug remained as he left them. Excellent, onto the next phase.
Second, he needed an appropriate specimen; he began to search through the cave system. He needed a source of inspiration. He looked at all the creatures through his mental connection to the dungeon; he looked in on the wolves. Now that he controlled that section of the dungeon, he wondered if he could approach them. The goblin was too excited and skipped breakfast as he headed into the cave. He needed to start with a solitary creature; he locked in on a large boar. Worst comes to worst, he would have fresh meat for a while. He took long strides through the purple woods and found the clearing where the beast was grazing.
He walked out of the coverage of the foliage and the boar gazed in his direction; he didn’t feel hostility in its eyes. So he decided to get a little closer; he began to approach. The hulk of a creature gazed but eventually went back to grazing; he got right up to the beast and even placed a hand against its side. So, at least for this creature, he was determined to be non-aggressive. He looked the beast up and down, looking at the muscle groupings and build. If only he could dissect the creature to get a better understanding, but he felt guilty killing something that was showing him this level of trust.
Perhaps he could control these beasts to defend the place? The goblin took quite a few steps back from the beast. He tried to exert control over them; he didn’t quite know how, so it ended up him just issue mental commands. "Come to me," echoed in his mind. The boar nonchalantly continued to munch on the grass before it. Perhaps verbal commands were required. “Come,” the goblin said with as much assertiveness as he could muster. The boar turned its head up to him, gazing at the sudden source of sound in the quiet underground world. Once confirming it, the beast returned its gaze back to the grass and resumed its endless gluttony.
“COME!” The goblin said it louder this time, as if that would help. The boar just snorted in response, clearly unwilling to give him the time of day any longer. Either he was lacking something here or he didn’t have any control over the creatures within the cave. Well, that failed; time for the next idea. He gave the boar one last lookover, then began searching for a new target of interest. There were several large lizard beasts; he soon arrived where they were living, a large rocky area. The largest ones would sit upon the tallest rocks and bask under the glow of the bioluminescent mushrooms.
He watched when one was challenged for their position on the rocks and they would battle, spitting poison that would land on the nearby foliage and cause it to melt into puddles. They were not the fastest or strongest of creatures but their sheer resilience or toxicity was awe-inspiring. He got close to the largest one and inspected it, looking at how its body was built. Once satisfied, he moved on to the next predator. There was the wolf pack that lived in the heavily forested area.
They were significantly weaker than the other creatures he inspected but they made up for it in sheer numbers and intelligence. He watched a small group of them hunt a deer in the undergrowth; they skillfully set up the ambush from all sides. Knowing what was coming, he felt the odds of the deer’s survival drop. Inevitably they got their meal.
After the show, his stomach growled in hunger. Normally such a sight would disgust most but it only reminded him that he skipped breakfast, so he should wrap up his safari visit. He approached the biggest wolf he could find. The beast was large but lithe; he felt an irresistible urge to stroke its hair but as his hand approached, the wolf let off a low growl. He chuckled at the interaction; after all, a beast of this caliber had its pride. He examined it, looking at the limb proportions and structure. Enough field research for today; let’s go back and get prepared for the next phase.
The goblin left the area and began to return home. He went into the kitchen and realized his food stocks were empty, so he decided to cheat today and conjured up some food. He felt like a hearty slab of boar. As he dug in, he thought that he should have sampled the various wildlife to expand his cooking, but it didn’t cross his mind. He created another room; it was as large as his training room but this would serve in a similar fashion. But rather, this would be the start of his most ambitious project yet, as he pulled the dagger of magical metal out of his pocket with a smile.
