Chapter 64: The mystery behind dungeons

Infinite Mana in the Apocalypse

The explanations began slowly, and soon became huge dumps of information that I had to sift through

To start it off, the being I have been talking to this entire time called itself the Planetary Core. When I first heard this I blanked out a little, I had been talking to the core of this world this entire time?

It went further to further clarify that it was a system of laws congregated together to keep this world alive, so I could also call it this world's Planetary System. I cut it down to System for short just to make it easier when I was addressing it

The System had gained consciousness when dungeons first began appearing on this this planet, and could only begin to act a step behind the enemies and play catch up as they began their invasion

Essence of our young world was used to awaken the first groups of hunters, paying an expensive price to grant them inherent skills that enabled them to stand against the onslaught of beasts

This wouldn't be enough to stand against the droves of enemies though, so the System performed its first drastic measure since it gained consciousness

When the beasts died, their essence was lost in the environment and could be re-absorbed by the surrounding world inefficiently

The System took the drastic action of using more than half of its essence to form a system of power that was compatible to the beings in its planet that knew nothing about the new fantastical and magical things they were experiencing

The awakened would now be able to quantify and observe their strength with the advent of an attribute panel, and most of all, the key factor of being able to get stronger by snatching the essence from the beasts they kill.

The System used more than half of its essence to implement this new system of power where the essence of dying beasts would be extracted, and the skills & abilities that were buried deep in the beast's essence would be turned to the source of strength for the hunters. Thus, came the advent of skill books, items, and cores

Some beasts that later came to be called TITANs and BOSSes had a denser collection of essence that allowed for skills and items to be extracted from them, while for other beasts, only cores that reinforced the strength, vitality, and focus of the awakened individuals could be drawn out

This new system of power allowed this world and its inhabitants a unique ability that most likely was not existent anywhere else in the universe that allowed for the extraction and absorbance of the power of your enemies.

The System had to regain the tremendous amount of essence it lost through this , so half of all extracted energy would go towards the planet's core.

The awakened were thus able to make their stand and slowly take back their lands, but much of the world was already decimated by beasts, only giving rise to a collection of countries that later became known as the United Federation and a connection of Cities protected under the banner of an Empire

The System went into a period of hibernation after this to recover its essence, its hunters slowly contributing by clearing the beasts and the dungeons that they came from

This brought us to the subject of dungeons.

The dungeons were lines of connections that our enemy sent down. These lines of connections carried with them the origin of many inhabitants from another world. They were sent down and settled on the planet as monoliths that required time to allow for the physical entry of the beings in the connection line.

Depending on how much essence was used on the dungeons, the rate of release could be accelerated.

But if people came in contact with the monolith and were able to defeat the origins of the beings in it, essence of the monolith would be used up and the release would be delayed.

The enemy that sent these dungeons down would then have to keep providing essence towards these dungeons to replenish the origin of the beings in it. This process repeated back and forth in the months that followed the advent of the apocalypse

Hunters would repeatedly enter dungeons and clear them, using up more and more essence and taking it for themselves. The other side would continue to send down essence to reinforce and maintain the origins of beings that slowly lost their minds and rationality from being broken and rebuilt so many times

Then came the reason that I was wondering about all this time. If a dungeon was cleared rapidly enough, the in flow of essence from the invading force couldn't keep up with how much essence was being absorbed, and the connection line would be broken, with the beings inside dying completely

This, was the destruction of the monolith that I had caused.

I looked up to the rotating prism when it got to this point and asked.

"Then, the [Plane Crystal] that I received once the monolith imploded is…"

[It is a direct line of connection that we can use to ascertain the coordinates of their world and send our own forces down.]

…

I was speechless for the first time in a while. I thought about what this implied and then asked something I couldn't bring myself to ask before

"How do I...fit in all of this"

The System took a pause when we go to this point

[When I regained enough essence to become active again, I saw that the situation was not heading in the right direction and that I had to act once more. I felt a level of frustration as I had enough essence and power to even bend some natural laws, but I couldn't make use of it to plainly erase the invaders because much stronger universal laws are in place to prevent such direct intervention]

I felt my mind start pounding as I listen very closely to the next words

[So I calculated countless possibilities, and came to the one with the highest chance of success, while it also posed the greatest danger. But, this path would allow for a truly strong person to rise and protect the planet, so I attempted it.]

I listened with rapt attention while waiting for the voice to continue

[I created a backdoor from the planet's core and connected it to a single human that had the least restrictions, someone who wasn't yet even awakened. This channel would allow the possibility of things that are normally impossible.]

My thoughts were moving rapidly as I heard this...this was why I felt that I had infinite mana to cast whatever skills I wanted without restriction.

This was why my [Focus] was blank. All of that energy...it wasn't just coming from nowhere. This made me recall something I had read about in school years back, that energy couldn't be created nor destroyed, only transformed from one form to another

It felt like lessons finally kicked in when I thought about my mana, and how the skill books and cores came to be. But, could the common laws I knew about even be applicable at this stage we were at now? As for just how much energy an entire planet contained...could the tremendous essence even be quantified?

My thoughts were interrupted as the System continued

[But...this came at a huge cost and introduced a vulnerability that was not there before. You are connected to the planetary core, and the planetary core is connected to you. If you ever faced destruction...the entire planet will follow.]

…!!!