Unfortunate Circumstances

Once Kantan pushed Lyra through the portal, he placed his hand on the wall next to the portal and felt a portion of his chi transfer into the wall. As that happened, the portal flickered for a moment before becoming steady once again. Veri gave him a mental nod, letting him know that it was safe to go forward. Without any hesitation, he stepped through the swirling mist of demonic essence and back into the control room of the dungeon.

The amount of ambient essence in the room almost caused him to choke, the sheer pressure of the power in the room weighed down on him heavily. It was like there was a mountain atop his shoulders, yet at the same time he felt that pressure on his entire being. As if each cell of his body was effected equally. Just as his legs were about to give up, he felt a powerful sensation that seemed to scan him before stopping on Veri in his chest. Once the power saw her there, it quickly dissipated along with the pressure. The demonic essence was still thicker than he had ever seen, but for some reason it no longer affected him.

He opened the memories to Veri with a questioning mental tone and she seemed to have the answer. "There are a lot of things I had to consider when I first decided to leave the dungeon, one of which was how to have the control room identify foreign creatures from its own. Without me there to facilitate the connection, all the core can see is that a creature exists within the dungeon. My solution to that was to bind each demon to an incredibly small gemstone within their bodies that acts like an identifier whenever the dungeon scans them. Since I am within you, I am considered your identifier."

Kantan nodded in understanding, more curious about why there was so much essence collected in the control room. "How come there is so much essence here? I thought that the demon lord only killed the last boss and then left." It didn't make much sense why the demon lord would only kill the last boss, and on top of that it didn't seem like he came for the reward the dungeon would provide. Based on what Veri had said, the demon lord had left almost immediately after.

"Not only did the dungeon activate its defensive measures, but it also absorbed all the remaining mobs in the entire dungeon. That is why there is so much power floating around here. The control core isn't strong enough to contain it all, which is why the crystals above it also grab ambient demonic essence and condenses it until the core needs more. AKA the liquid in the bowl that holds the gem." Veri sent along a few mental memories of the process, which Kantan thought would overwhelm his mind. Oddly, time seemed to barely pass a second before the memories seemed to mesh with his own. This was the first big data dump he had gotten and, aside from a small headache, he understood significantly more about the processes going on behind the scenes.

The possibilities of this affected him more than the actual content. If Veri could funnel knowledge into him about runes and crafting various things that she had used throughout the dungeon, he could build his own powerful hideout and tools in the future. Just as he was about to nag her for more, a sensation of emptiness rang out from his core. Just transferring the high level mechanics had considerably drained his chi reserves. In a moment of fear he queried Veri's mental presence for weakness, but instead found her stable instead.

When confusion passed through their mental bond, Veri explained for him. "I have been maintaining out cultivation technique since before you woke up. While sharing the memories with you burned a lot of power, I have been constantly collecting more."

Kantan realized he had only bothered to register that he felt empty, but hadn't done a deep inspection of his channels and core out of fear for Veri. Now that he took a moment to sense the state of his body, he felt the tug of expansion in his chi channels that normally accompanied the flowing energy. Veri was maintaining the energy in their channels, which explained why his core felt empty. There technically wasn't any energy in his core, since it was in his channels. It was a weird thing to recognize, but it was only something that happened to those below stone rank.

The stone rank rebirthed the body using chi as one of the primary building materials. Once one's body was completely linked with their chi, they could feel the power with incredibly fine detail. As a freshly awoken, he had to take the effort to feel anything specific. Kantan didn't like that he had missed the feelings of chi moving through him, but ultimately chalked it up to his rank and mental fatigue. The past two days had been incredibly stressful and while his body healed and recovered quickly, his mind did not. It was only then that Kantan recognized that he hadn't slept naturally in over two days. Each time he had slept recently, he had actually been forced unconscious in one way or another.

As soon as he acknowledged the fatigue, it seemed to roll through him like a tidal wave. Chi could help him stay awake and fuel his body, but he also hadn't directly eaten anything either. Some of his bodies cry for resources had been answered by his chi along with the imp he had absorbed. While the two had helped him up until this point, even a warrior would need rest after two major injuries and days without proper food and rest.

"Veri, while I can hold on for a bit more, im sure you can tell that im starting to run on fumes. You didn't happen to create a bedroom or anything before you did all this, right?" Kantan knew that food wasn't a direct necessity, especially since he wasn't sure what he was supposed to eat.

Veri seemed to giggle to herself before taking on a somber sarcastic tone. "Well you see, I don't think I did. You know, I was so occupied with saving your life. Not only that, but I planned on leaving this place pretty soon after. What purpose would a bed serve us if we aren't here?"

Kantan's hand pressed firmly against his forehead as he fought back his tired grouchiness. ���So if we don't have anywhere to sleep, what would you suggest? I don't think it would feel to great to sleep on literal stone until we rank up." Just the thought of being forced to find a comfortable position in the blank stone room sent a shiver down his spine. He could already feel the various aches and pains he would get from the rough nights.

Veri seemed to think for a bit, before he felt an evil grin permeate his mind. "If I understand it right, its entirely possible that you may not need to sleep." For some reason, he couldn't get the idea that he was a lab rat out of his head.

"I am not sure I like where this is going, but lets hear it anyways." He knew there was no escaping someone who was literally in his head, and figured it better to save himself the trouble of hearing her try to guilt him again with her loneliness.

Veri quickly broke down what she was thinking, Kantan's face growing darker and darker as she spoke. She essentially wanted to treat him like she would one of her dungeon mobs. The dungeon kept all of the dungeon mobs running and alert through the chi they were supplied with. He was concerned that she wanted to some how link him directly to the dungeon, but that was a big no go for him. When he turned that down, she thought some more before dropping an option he disliked almost as much.

"Demon's work differently than most creatures or spirit beasts would. Since they are more based around their physical bodies they need less rest and food than the average creature would at the same level. You have already seen the benefits of this, which is why you only need a real break now. As far as I can tell, once we absorbed that imp, your body entered a state of rapid growth. If I had to put it on a scale, you went from a rank 1 to a rank 1.1. While you were evolving, the growth took its toll on your resources but also reinvigorated you."

Kantan could see where she was going with it almost immediately, but even he could tell that there were a few problems. "Even if I could some how continue to absorb rank 1 demons, the amount of effort I would need to exert would outweigh the benefits. Not only that, but I feel like I would grow less from absorbing creatures if my body is low on resources."

Veri gave it some more thought, but eventually she seemed to settle on something. He hoped that she was going to have something that would fix his problem of needing food and somewhere to sleep, but her words left him disappointed. "I hate to say it, but the only way you are getting food that isn't from outside is to eat what is in here. The dungeon will begin populating again soon, but unless you are ready to eat some nice and juicy erthi you will be fresh out of luck."