Chương 86: Experimentation is the lifeblood of a Innearth.

Are you ready to leave? Yes father. Excerpt obtained from an overheard conversation between one dwarf and his strange father. Crash. Innearth watched his test snake smash through an adventurer's armour drawing blood. It seems… stronger than if I had used void? But I also feel I might be able to get this effect with a void tipped cone and a kinetic propulsion system. I guess it's like… it's stronger but not impressively stronger. I need to better figure out what this can do!

Considering the snake could rest its head against stone mana without digging into it it's almost like it doesn't have a "void" effect at all. Instead, it feels more like… well momentum. It's ripping through defences with raw power instead of melting through them with void. That… doesn't feel like something "cosmic void" sounds like it should do. Innearth wanted to get some baselines. The next few days of testing were boring for anyone looking in but Innearth was having a blast.

The dungeons placed different shapes in different scenarios and rigorously tested everything from piercing power to defending power to how efficient it was as a replacement material. For piercing tests, he created blocks of void and cosmic void mana and dropped them on different metals and stones and reinforced shields. He realized they used different amounts of mana and raw materials SO.

To deal with this, some tests had mana the same, some had size or "weight" (hard to measure on the cosmic void), some used the same raw mass. When he changed the size he tried making sure they all had the same surface area – or created cones or nets to see how that affected things. Defensive tests were similar in scope, but mostly existed of throwing different materials at both or submerging them in acid or magma. His affinity increased his one triplet spell to be relatively straightforward.

It wasn't nearly as easy or as simple as a rank 1 combination like sand or magma… but it also wasn't as bad as darkness mana with its light and void combo. After a while he didn't even think of it. His own tests were supplemented by his crystal dwarves drawing various runes on them both (spoiler, void materials were much harder to draw runes on) or placing them in various analysis devices. The main sort of information he figured out from these tests was… well they fundamentally worked in a different way.

They both "smashed through things" but cosmic void squished it to the side and void ate it away. At a certain height cosmic void could smash through much more initially before stopping… but void mana kept sinking slowly but steadily overcoming it over time with nothing but the pull of gravity. In terms of defence, it was more durable than mundane steel but that was about it… it was also crumbly and when broken too badly tended to disappear into nothing without even leaving dust behind.

A relatively thin plate could still take quite a beating but using it solely for defence didn't seem smart currently. This material really doesn't feel… like a void material. Closest is the fact that it doesn't leave dust behind when it breaks too badly… and I guess the fact that void didn't seem to damage it at all? So it's an upgraded version of voidstone? Welp.

Pretty obvious next step is to check how it fares in the "literal void" Moving his experiments to a cut off section of the facility Innearth began a new series of experiments. While inside the void, his material didn't immediately seem that different. However… the longer it stayed in it and the more he moved it about the stronger it became. It didn't quite suck but it did passively absorb the void atmosphere when moving through it.

Pulling plates back and forth Innearth watched as the purplish sort of existence became noticeably… less. Looking closer it was actually blocking the atmosphere and creating a slipstream behind it while consuming part of it depending on how fast it moved/how hard the void atmosphere was pushed into it. The atmosphere inside of Innearth's testing chambers became cleaner and while that was a nice sort of side effect towards making the place more comfortable for adventurers… it wasn't useful for testing.

Innearth made a new small shell outside of the facility – asking Abe to properly time magic ward it against demons before continuing. This rapidly increased the transmutation speed and while it was hard to tell without the system giving him nice numbers… it was clear it was getting stronger with each pass. Abe stuck around paying attention for a bit curious to see what he was doing in the new room.

It was hard to remain serious fanning plates about when someone kept drawing smiley faces and explosions on them or giving life to small creatures to see how annoying he could be. Finally, a threshold was reached with the material. Like the voidstone walls that had instantly been transmuted into a stronger system tagged "invincible" state, this process created something similar over the course of several hours in a dense area.. There was a difference however. A massive massive difference.

After void tempering the plate into something close to or reaching "invincibility," it could then be brought back to reality without losing this property. This alone was "massive". Honestly the original void tempered materials had been massive already but Innearth hadn't really wanted to use them to create devices that could only be used in the void. They were doing a good job where they were! And without a way to recreate them every time he cut away, he was permanently decreasing the amount he had.

Yes, Innearth now had a way of creating impossibly durable weapons and armour. Monsters that couldn't conventionally be killed. Rooms that couldn't be broken out of. … that last one might become a huge undertaking over any practical amount of time. It was obviously doable in some capacity… but transmuting a single 50x50x0. 1cm plate into invincibility had taken him ages and he had been manually moving it about the whole time. He could not do this with huge shapes…

and making several interlocking and "welded" together plates would be weaker. No, Innearth could not see himself adding this to every wall in his dungeon. Maybe a few doors on his lower levels? No it feels overkill for basically everything but smaller undertakings. … Innearth typically didn't think of core protection lately. He had been acting perfectly reasonable – not a hint of madness infused him and it was incredibly unlikely he would find himself on any sort of system hitlist…

But hey, with an invincible material who wouldn't want to feel slightly safer? Innearth made a box of cosmic void – one with one side open and a separate invincible lid to successfully surround his core. He transmuted it and brought it back to reality before attempting to drop it around his core like an oversized hat. Immediately he came across a slight hiccup. His influence was blocked off by this material. Covering most of his sides drastically reduced his influence control… essentially everywhere in his dungeon.

It also felt dangerous. Like the longer he had his cosmic hat on the sicker he felt – as if he could feel the very edge of his influence withering and dying. Quickly Innearth removed it and tried to think of a solution. Bunch of crystal mana circuits all over it? Make a new box with holes on it then add dungeon flesh circuits to bypass the blocking off? A pause as Innearth thought. Can I claim the box itself? It's not like nullstone, it feels like I should be able to.

Tempered cosmic void blocked magic but not really in the same way that nullstone did. It felt like the way magic and indeed physical effects like sound, light, and vibrations weakened when passing between a regular room and a void-shrunk room – just dialled up by a massive hidden multiple. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Grabbing hold of this tangent before it fully crystalized Innearth re-placed the unlidded box around himself and tried to vibrate his influence through it. Tried to expand into the box. Slowly but surely, haltingly slowly, his influence began squeezing through. It passed into the thin strip of material and kept going… deeper and deeper. Inside of the cosmic void material there was a massive amount of space – and it was twisted inwards on itself in a crystalline fractal.

Like a shape that fit inside of a shape inside of a shape… but each was only slightly smaller than the one around it and really shouldn't fit. It was an expanded area but it was weird. It felt less like a "bigger on the inside" bag or room – those felt like the fabric of reality were pinched and stretched. Like a ball on a soft bed pushing space down wherever it moved. This felt like a whole pocket of air was underneath the bed.

Instead of a stretching of space, it felt like a bubble of space that just barely touched reality. Completely separate and joined by a thick barrier. And this separate space, this separate dimension had no empty areas. It was completely and utterly packed full of a solid material that currently flickered with purplish void atmosphere due to all the tempering. Pocket void? The actual void itself? So this material creates a whole miniature universe that's similar to the void?

And then Innearth was through the other side and instantly felt better. His influence completed a full loop in all directions and his current size could be supported once again. His box was twisted slightly in an unknown way as he claimed it… turned it into his own flesh. But it felt good. The lid was glued to the bottom of his box and passed through as well before Innearth knew what hit him.

A quick test of claiming a non-tempered version of the material – something Innearth realized afterwards he should have checked first – made it known a lot of the same effects were there but less dramatic. It was easier to expand into and the inner dimensions felt less weird. Innearth tried to measure if his box impeded his influence transfer and couldn't see any difference. He was now protected! From quite a bit actually, he wanted to think it was everything…

but the very fact that his influence could move through it and his inventory eat into the tempered material, exposed an attack vector he didn't quite know enough to understand yet. So invicibility*? … I just thought of a way to cheat. I really want to see if this works. Innearth created a shield. On one side a quarter sphere of cosmic void material, on the other kinetic dampening followed by some soft fur from a woolly monster in his wild monster farm. He tempered it and then set it as loot and checked its tooltip.

Unknown shield of worldly protection. [Max Tier Shield] Similar to the holy mothers most divine of armour, this simple shield protects against all physical and magical damage. Its one weakness is soul magic… but has a stronger resistance than most. Durability N/A. … I feel like that says something about my influence and inventory damaging it. That's considered soul magic? Okay. Neat I guess. Innearth began asking around but none of his friends knew much about soul magic.

He briefly remembered Abyss and sought him out to ask… but the older core didn't know either. There was plenty of vague stuff about soul magic on the internet… but nothing linking a dungeon's influence to it. Nothing until a promising lead led Innearth to a strange page that was simply a blank blackish page with a greyed-out button and a message. Meaning to life. They don't want you to know this. I don't want you to know this. Knowing this can negatively effect your existence. For the last time.

You have been warned. This is your warning. This is barred. If you have found this page you were probably looking for a meaning to your existence, or accidentally touched upon some related but not important information contained within. The only reason it is offered… is if your existence is already negatively affected. If you've considered your life fulfilled… sometimes knowing what your purpose in life is can give you new hope! If it doesn't it doesn't matter. Please, if you are currently happy do not watch this.

If you are merely curious, stay away. This page is locked with natural law mana and will only open if you have lost hope. Maybe just maybe it can help you. ~OG What. What the cursed sky's nothingness is this site? Is this some sort of joke? I just wanted to know about how a dungeon works?? Why the hidden monster? The cloak and daggers? … OG? That's the core who wrote this? It has to be good! I remember how influential they were in my newborn stage! And they have a rank 4 mana!

They have to know some juicy information. Innearth raged at the injustice of his curiosity being blocked off. No information could affect him in anything but a positive way! Innearth briefly went searching for a Core named OG. He scoured for references on them and found plenty of stuff about a natural law core who was incredibly influential in the first millennia… but nothing recent. Innearth wanted to know. He really wanted to know…

but finally his curiosity was overcome by his original task and he returned to focusing on cosmic void. Okay. Fine. I'm not giving up on finding out what the meaning to life is but I'll simmer for now. So this cosmic void material is a whole dimension that's solid matter… that kind of explains its side effects. It's like a storage that can only hold ethereal things! What about trying to store mana inside of it?

Innearth pushed his own mana at it first but all he got was a failed material spell as the mana bounced off. He next turned to search for the output of one of his mana filter streams. A tap into his blocked-off whimsy floor steadily dripping a pinkish liquid into fields tended by nameless crystal dwarves. His treeroot-like filtration system had become incredibly good at splitting the pollution out over the years.

There were no huge jumps or massive changes till now but efficiency had slowly but steadily risen and now over half the outputs were "nearly" madness free. He was outputting essentially free "non-madness-related" "incredibly-mana-dense" "unique materials" from over a hundred different "taps". Considering he didn't focus on unique materials himself much, most of it was further filtered by plants and monsters – then used by dwarves crafting loot for him – but it was still incredible to see.

None of the outputs were mana types Innearth could make on his own – after all, if he could make a pure version of any of them, he could make corrupted crystals of that flavour and help strain the mana streams even more. Instead, all the taps were outputting materials with mixes like… well it was hard to tell exactly because they were bundles off different mana flavours which changed slightly depending on the monster or plant it was "laundered" through and further changed when crafted with…

But themes could obviously be discovered as long as they were tracked. One stream was tentatively called "dream mana pollution" for items made with it tended to either fall into a "nightmare" madness tinged effect, "sleep" type paralyzing ability or a "rested" type item. Another stream was dubbed "springtime" for nearly every material that came out of it had something to do with flowers or butterflies or sunshine or new growth…

Picking this springtime tap at random Innearth began engineering a solution to smash it into a plate of cosmic void. The stream wasn't that fast but Innearth made a solid drop out of a smooth angled spout to try and beat it into his plate with the momentum. He added a few gravity plates at various angles to speed it up and made sure the flow continued on unabated to the spout afterwards. Let's see if this is enough to push any mana into the material.

At first, nothing seemed to happen but having learned his lesson and basing it off the idea of the mana needing to pierce the veil between his pocket universe and reality Innearth waited patiently. Despite being pretty positive that it would work – that it should work – it stubbornly refused to budge. I didn't even temper it first? Why isn't it letting mana in? Innearth was just in the process of deciding it was a lost cause when he noticed something had changed.

An almost faint almost non-existent sort of vibration was building as the stream of liquid continued to beat his plate downwards. Expanding through the plate to watch the process from both outside and in, Innearth was just in time to see the first bit of mana begin to beat in and through. Pushing his own mana at the process "widened" the "crack" letting more mana seep through steadily building and pooling in the crystalline world within.

Quickly it became apparent this was not what Innearth thought was going to happen. The drudge of mana pollution on the far side was not actually fully leaking through – what was pooling currently was pure mana. Pure mana. That's all that seemed to want to enter this world inside a material. Pure mana leaked in… and didn't seem to combine with the already existing cosmic void that made up a large part of the world.

Instead, it built and pooled – moving through the world like a spiderweb that filled in afterwards and then as pressure built it began leaking out the other side. Slowly but surely faint streams of pure mana popped out the far end. It wafted out like a colourless invisible stream – a haze only visible to Innearths' mana sight. This cloud of mana didn't seem to want to stay in its current form and quickly began breaking down.

A good amount pushed into the earth – earth-related mana types greedily seeming to eat the pure mana and increase their own strength. Some attached to the air and became Air and Gas related mana types. Some spun away attaching to more esoteric shapes and forms like the room or cave or open area it found itself in. Innearth attempted to stem this flow but pure mana really did not like to stay in the environment long.

When he closed off the area and filled it with pure H2O from his inventory it slowed the process down… but then after a half-hour or two, the pure mana remaining in the liquid had the bright idea of spontaneously becoming water mana and quickly shifted itself to Water-related mana types as if pleased with itself. Innearth was probably going too hard if he was starting to attribute emotions to the environmental mana. A break was needed.

While Innearth had been playing around with his new material and getting distracted by figuring out what it could do, the rest of his friends had begun advancing. After him, Doc had reached rank 4 – picking the option that Innearth stubbornly kept refusing "Experimentation mana". He hadn't managed a triplet mana type but was followed by two who had. Amy's triplet was made with her affinities – water, life, and mental mana.

It created a material and mana type the system called "Ambrosia" which had some description about healing the mind, body and soul. Queen came straggling up in the rear – her triplet of earth, life and plant created a material called "Yggdrasil heartwood" with an affinity she instantly took called Yggdrasil mana. The gang was all together once more – no longer stuck carving messages to each other on the facility walls. Ah, I wonder what my friends have planned next?