For Eon encountering strange things was a usual occurrence for any outing. For a sage, even a walk through the park had to be done through the forbidden forest to be at least enjoyable.
Yet… This was the first time Eon encountered a creature that seemed to defy what was known about life and death.
Undead were dead, that was why a unique few could cast death element spells. The living were living, that was why a unique few could cast life element spells. This however seemed to be neither dead nor alive.
"It can either cast both types of spell or neither…" Eon muttered contemplating. Could he use this characteristic? That was the question.
Thinking about the root cause of his sickness, increasing his mana alone wouldn't help. It was just putting a bandage that would soon need to be replaced by stitches, and then eventually by an extensive operation, and at some point, the mana cost would be unbearable.
The next other option was to make his blood naturally carry mana. Eon felt it could at least alleviate and lessen the symptoms while prolonging his life. The question was how he would do such a thing. Was this the birth of a new element? The blood element.
Such a conclusion required deeper probing. But Eon was a man that lived long and knew of many tales. This included the tale of Adrigus who died regretfully while studying the plant-pseudo element.
He wasn't the first either. There was also the tale of Ashwin who died while trying to prolong his life through the elements of life. A logical approach that was ultimately met with failure. The death element was also experimented with but any records cleanly wiped and the faces of those responsible removed from history.
The study of death was forbidden for humanity and with good reason. Life and Death were two sides of the same coin but there was also this inherent polarity. If Bloody was a mixture of both however would Eon still be hunted down?
"HAHAHAHA- Cough Argh!" He who had kidnapped the king of the Bosque kingdom and lived for a century and a half was most certainly not afraid of persecution. Actually, if anyone managed to capture him while in this bizarre dungeon he'd give himself in willingly. That was quite the feat.
"Liltle buddy, I'll give you plenty of blood if you lend yourself to me for a short while" Eon told Bloody who was looking at him expectantly. It was waiting for him to cough again.
"Hmmm… I need a test subject" Eon thought for a moment before bringing something out of a separate pocket of space. It was the figure of Brennan Bosque still corrupted by the assassin's element of death.
"An assassin that shouldn't exist, looks like I'll be doing the kingdom a good deed" If he figured out a way to counterattack its methods, they would have to reward him handsomely. Though this implied that he didn't kill the king in the process and prolonged his life.
A spatial box formed around Bloody pulling the latter out of the water. This showed that Eon was eager to get started.
***
Back at the orc plains, Ed was not having a good time. He was in fact going through an incredible mental battle at the moment.
'I- I can't do it!" The effort he had gone through to achieve what he had was not little. How could he give so much of it up just like that? But If Ed did not do it then he would have to rely on the dungeon's whims.
Thus, it was with great mental fortitude and spirit that Ed managed to acquiesce to the system's insane price tag.
Indeed, price tag.
[Acquiring 'Living Room']
Ed had bitten the dust and he now had a brand new living room. All it costed him was the lives of innocent creatures. Greed and vanity… To think such things were worth more than lives.
'Ah, as if.' The system allowed Ed to buy this using 50 monster consciousnesses. A hefty sum but Ed had killed plenty.
The upgrade was being acquired and Ed awaited the result patiently. He was looking forward to it because he needed to have always available mushrooms as his grappling orcs idea had told him.
'The materials for this magic hook can be homegrown, or rather mind grown' As long as he had a living room! Which was not where most people would think to place their greenhouse.
'What a stupid name' Ed complained but he knew why it was called like that. To put it bluntly, things could live there. It wasn't necessarily for plants.
It was as if a homeowner moved into a new place and started remodeling everything. I mean, you could do that to your living room but... not necessarily what the room was supposed to be.
The purchase of the living room was soon completed.
[Notice: 'Living room' is unable to show its true capacity, consider expanding its size]
'Eh, what?!' Did he receive a tiny living room? What kind of rip-off was that?
Frightened, Ed ran into the system hallway and keenly spotted a new door which he promptly entered. Immediately, he could smell the fresh air-
'How the hell would I smell the fresh air, I am a consciousness' Putting aside the debate of how exactly fresh air smelled before it had a chance to start, Ed decided to focus back on what really mattered.
'This is a moderately sized room' It wasn't large to any extent but Ed would be able to grow some mushrooms there. Eyeballing the size one could guess at least 15ft squared on all sides?
'Except the ceiling' The ceiling was much shorter but Ed's current state was quite small so it was no real worry. The mushrooms weren't very tall either.
'Maybe that's the issue' The room was too small for anything that wasn't a mushroom. Growing a tree there certainty seemed impossible.
'Hm… This room is empty and white' There was no real issue with that except that one couldn't grow mushrooms on nothing no matter how nutritious that nothing might be. In the end, nothing was nothing.
'But if nothing is nothing doesn't it mean that nothing is something?' Ed's philosophical thoughts were kept to himself thankfully as he exited the space to grab some dirt off the ground. There was dirt in the storage room but he wanted some new dirt. Most of his came from underground.
Returning to the living room, Ed dropped a bunch of dirt everywhere. The pristine white room was instantly dirtied but Ed didn't care. He continued to bring more and more mounds of dirt until a small hill formed.
'Good' Ed thought before exiting the living room and heading to find the ideal mushrooms.
[Metal Mushroom]
[Blood Mushroom]
[Gray Mushroom]
[Water Mushroom]
Ed started with a couple of basic ones. He needed to confirm that not only would the mushrooms grow, but that they would thrive. These mushrooms were taken into the living room and as soon as Ed entered with them, he noticed the difference.
'These mushrooms feel real' Before they could be compared to a manifestation of thought that could be physically held.
'Well, mentally' He was a consciousness so it couldn't count as physical.
Ed left shortly after planting the mushrooms. He still had to find the human base and wasting time was not his style. The orcs and humans were in a situation where whoever struck first could hold an advantage.
As it stood, Ed and Sanctuary were losing the race. The enemy knew where they were located but they didn't know where the enemy was. It was an issue that had to be amended.
Ed's figure continued to dart about in the darkness of the thick canopy. He seemed to be still wandering without direction and there was some truth. Ed's target was the humans but finding some orc settlements did not necessarily take a back seat.
Ed wanted to be the sole authority when it came to orc distribution in the plains. For that, he had to find some settlements. Not just orc ones either, even goblins would do nicely. But for the time being, introducing more goblins was not a priority.
'They'll have trouble being introduced into orc society' Ed wouldn't force too many things. Not all orcs were stupid enough to blindly follow the strong. Just… well… the large majority.
After some more minutes, it was clear that Ed's hard work did pay off. He encountered a settlement not too long after. The only problem was that there were no orcs to recruit. The settlement was trashed and charred.
'Destructive' The orc tribe that lived there was definitely annihilated. Ed couldn't believe these humans were so lacking in morals but the evidence was in front of him.
'They might not see mobs as living creatures at all' Basic empathy made it so one could understand the plight of even other species and animals. The humans' apparent disregard for mob life was troubling.
'What's causing it?' While Ed didn't doubt there existed troublesome monsters it was unfair to label them all as problematic, right?
'A pity that this happened' But the destruction reassured Ed's thought that the humans were near. Best of all, there could be some tracks.. Ed felt that he would be faced with the human base after traveling for an hour or two.