Valknar
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Chapter 143
🕑 Added 2025-06-11 07:48:34 +0000 UTC“Can you recreate what you have learned?” Ranus asked. He and many others were sitting in his office around the big table, discussing what they could do to limit the corruption of the city’s population. Selmum had been quiet throughout the entire discussion.
Selmum had not spoken much to anyone since returning from the Dungeon. She had spent two days with the man, who was now free of corruption, checking his condition. She thought about his question.
“The process is one I can recreate. It is incredibly complex and dangerous for the patient. But I am sure if I witnessed it a few more times, I would be able to recreate how it is done fully. The problem is we have nowhere to store the corrupted essence.”
There had been a stir of excitement at her first words, but the second part deflated everyone once again. The second part of storage was the key to treating the corrupted within the city and beyond.
How could they store the corrupted void essence?
By its very nature, the essence corrupted everything around it, including any vessel they placed it into.
Ranus looked around the table, not seeing anyone with any ideas or even a hint of one. He was equally lost, not knowing the answer to the question that was posed. Everything could be changed if they could find a way to store it.
A sullen silence descended over the group as they all tried to devise a solution.
The only place and thing that could do anything with void essence and not be corrupted by it was the dungeon and its core. If only they could get miniature versions of it to be used as a storage device. They could….
“We ask the dungeon.” He said, sitting up as an idea came to him.
“What was that? Lord Ranus.” Elian asked, startled a bit.
“The dungeon is the only place that can store void essence. We should ask if there is any way it can give us the means to store it as well.” He reached into his coat, looking for the black communication crystal as he spoke. Several others became excited at his words, realising he might be on something.
With the crystal in hand now, he spoke one more time. “If the gods are with us, we might have a chance.”
## ## ## ## ##
I have spent the day mulling over a problem. Goldwind had contacted me again about the issue of his people being corrupted with void essence. They had learned quite a lot from my demonstration of how to remove it, and they were sure that after a few more viewings, they would be able to recreate it. That was great for me as I didn’t have to have people tromping around my dungeon and things that don’t belong here.
One major problem did crop up. How to store it?
I quickly saw what he was saying and that it would be a significant problem, but then I pointed out to the other one that they hadn’t realised yet.
How to get rid of it.
I told them I would think about it and get back to them. I did this partly to get them gone so I don’t have to listen to the voices in the background or him debating every little bloody thing. But as I had time, it was an interesting problem.
I was close to the next floor, but I wouldn't reach it for at least a few days, depending on whether anyone was stupid enough to go up against Krag.
I have been thinking about it for quite some time: Could I store void essence somewhere else outside of myself? If I can figure out how to do it and teach the people above, this could put significant pressure on me. I could regulate the absorption of void essence more and prevent the danger of it chattering me.
Standard methods of containment were a waste of time. But can I alter something?
I had almost finished processing the void corruption within my core. Although my thinking was still cloudy, I felt much better.
“Storage, storage, storage, storage.”
I drifted around my dungeon, thinking about this. I need something that can hold essence or mana. I discovered that a means of storage that could contain mana also absorbs essence to recharge the mana.
Spending several weeks watching mana stones do their thing provided me with more insight than I had realised.
Mana Stones?
It was the most obvious solution to the problem. Unfortunately, the void essence corrupted the stones, corrupting everything around them.
That is similar to infernal mana..…
…. But the infernal manner wasn’t corrupting anything beyond its mana stone next to my core.
I returned to my alcove, shifting through my means of vision to investigate a crazy idea I had just had.
The more I looked and thought, the crazier the idea became, and it actually just work.
Over the rest of the day and night, I did a few experiments.
When dawn came, I had an answer.
In creating a mana stone, you infused it with the mana you wished to become attuned to. This allowed it to absorb that essence from around it into the stone. Well, it turns out that the stone also releases some of that mana back into the world in tiny amounts. When it is first created, unless it is sealed, to seal it, you have to leave it next to a more powerful magical source of different or opposing mana to prevent the leakage. I wasn’t exactly sure why, but that is what I discovered.
The reason why the infernal mana stone next to my core wasn’t leaking infernal mana was because it had been sealed due to my presence. This was true for all the other stones I created. To test this, I made a shadow mana stone overnight and left it in the tower. Then, I created a second one next to my core. When I checked in the morning, I found the one in the tower had been leaking small amounts of shadow mana. The other had not been.
That was all well and good, but void essence would still corrupt stone. Even if I sealed it, I suspected that it would be a means of transmitting void essence into the world. I needed a way to hold it in place.
I spent another hour thinking about this and looking around. My core was the only thing I knew that could hold void corruption.
Could that be the answer?
I shifted into my core and looked not at the central parts of it, but at the outside shell that absorbed the corruption into the deeper parts for processing. It was very similar to a mana stone, just much more complicated. I discovered a strange crystal configuration outside of my main sections of the core. It was allowing void essence by not letting it out. This could be the answer.
I could recreate this in Mana Stone. Maybe.
This was a terrible risk, but I was willing to take it.
I spent another hour experimenting to create a stone that would only absorb void essence and not release it. This, hopefully, solved the problem of how to store void essence. I had only to find an external source of void corruption twitching the stone to. Thankfully, several hundred people were still corrupted by the recent attack.
That meant I would have to have that healer back down here again.
But that led to the next problem of processing and getting rid of it.
Well, the answer that I was afraid of was obvious. Me.
I could absorb the void mana stones and deal with the corruption that came with them.
“Shit.”
I looked again at the new mana stone I had created.
“In theory, this should work. Time to make a call.”
## ## ## ## ##
Selmum was back in the dungeon with another patient suffering from advancing signs of void corruption.
Her instincts were screaming at her to get the woman out of there. The massive ogre held the patient in place, and the woman was hooded and bound as before. She was a bit more aware and was whimpering in fear.
The Dungeon Core was again on the pedestal.
Next to it was an untuned mana stone. The Core explained what it was planning to do. The Core had found a possible way to contain void essence that could be used outside the dungeon. If this worked, it could change the whole approach to treating corruption. The biggest problem she and all others had encountered was removing and storing the corrupted essence. Others had previously attempted to place the corrupted void essence into a mana stone, but this had always been disastrous. The dungeon core, however, claimed that it prevented the corrupted essence from escaping.
Witnessing the Core remove the corrupted essence from the first patient was a revelation. She had watched it through her magical sight granted to her by a goddess and her Path. The extraction process was a thing to behold as it showed a level of control that she didn’t think was possible. As she had seen it, she realised she might be able to match it. The extraction process was brutal but effective. She was confident that it could be recreated. If this mana stone contained the void essence as they hoped, she could attempt to do it herself.
It would still be dangerous for any healer trying it. The void essence could surge along the connection and infect the healer. That is why the mana stone was so important. It would catch the void essence drawn out as the healer redirected it.
This revolutionised her thinking about how to treat different ailments involving essence and how to heal injuries to the body that affect it. She had already come up with several new ideas on how to treat other essence-based ailments. If this experiment worked, it might prove a great boon to all the people of the world.
She knew that she was doing everything in her power not to look at the Core.
She had researched them before entering the dungeon to deal with it. She had a pretty good idea in her mind what she would find when she came here, but that proved to be a fallacy.
The Core sitting on the pedestal was like nothing she had ever imagined. Back then, it was the darkest night yet, with motes of magical light covering its surface that looked like stars. It was both wondrous to look at and strangely unsettling. She had been warned never to speak of it, and her oath prevented her from mentioning any other details of what she had seen regarding it.
She understood why this dungeon core was so keen on keeping its location hidden. It was beyond unique, and that made it beyond valuable. Even in these times of crisis, some were driven by nothing but their greed and pride. They would be the most dangerous as they would do anything to possess such a thing as this dungeon core.
“I am beginning.”
The voice came from the black speaking crystal that she held in her hand. It startled her slightly, and she focused once more on the task before her, moving her sight from her standard view into that of magic and essence.
Around her, essence flowed and shimmered in a great spiral vortex. The stairwell seemed to cause it as the air currents moved the essence in a spiral pattern into the dungeon. White was doing this; she had no inkling, but it seemed important to the dungeon.
She focused on the patient and saw that the dungeon was beginning to connect to her. Slowly, it allowed the void essence on the surface of the patient’s body to latch onto the little bit it had put out like a fisherman with his lure.
Once you are sure it is connected, the Core starts pulling back Dragon, the void essence, with it. This process required focus and control, as a simple error could be disastrous.
The first time she had watched it happen, Core had pulled the void essence into itself. This time, it moved a small amount into the mana stone. The effects were sudden as the void essence spread throughout the stone. From their previous experiments, the void essence would continue to corrupt the stone until it was total and then begin to draw in essence from around it, corrupting that too. Once the mana stone had reached its fill, it would then start to pump out the corrupted essence, spreading it further afield.
The problem was that no other element or magical force could act as a means to seal the mana stone. That was until the dungeon core claimed it could.
The core concentrated on drawing the rest of the corrupted void essence out of the patient and into itself, while a small amount of it moved into the mana stone, slowly moving through it. Normally, mana was used to attune a stone, but in this case, they weren’t taking any chances, and the thought of void mana was a terrifying thing. It would take far longer for the stone to become dangerous from that small amount of essence, allowing the dungeon core to pull the rest out of the patient.
She was screaming in pain, and Selmum had to harden her heart not to go to her patient and try to relieve her suffering. She knew she could not involve herself in what was happening and felt terrible for it. Slowly and surely, the dungeon core once again pulled all the corrupted void essence from her patient and absorbed it.
Once it was done, he turned his attention to the mana stone. The stone was turning black as the void essence pulsed through it, corrupting and changing it. Other types of essence were being pulled from the air into it, accelerating the process. The dungeon core was waiting.
Once the stone was entirely changed, it reached out in a way that Selmum had never seen before, wrapping its essence and some other form of energy around the newly created void mana stone.
It didn’t take more than a few heartbeats to do whatever it was doing and seal the stone. Now it would only absorb the void essence it claimed.
Selmum looked at the stone and realised that it was a mana stone, as promised, but it wasn’t absorbing any other type of essence from the air. The heart started beating faster in her chest as she realised it might have worked.
Comments
Undead Writer
Thanks for the chapter!!
