At the moment there was only one task I could focus on at the moment. And that was the construction of the tower's first floor. An extreme lack of soul energy had left my options rather limited, and that final task would use two points of creation energy from the tower. I did not need a manual for me to be told, that the creation energy was my most valuable commodity.
[USE 50 SE, AND 500% EE TO CONSTRUCT TOWER FIRST FLOOR…..]
[ACCEPTED. ESTIMATED TIME OF COMPLETION: 10:12:34]
TOWER HAS DISCOVERED BIOLOGICAL MATERIALS FROM DEFEATED ENEMIES. ABSORB AND ACTIVATE FORMER SPIRIT CRYSTAL SKILL, CREATE MONSTER..
What the hell is this, create monsters? I really did not understand how such a thing would be possible. But the tower was now, or could be considered a somewhat living entity, that was also connected to me on an existential level. If I had any questions, it would be willing to answer me.
[BEFORE THE SPIRIT CRYSTAL AND TOWER BONDED, THE SPIRIT CRYSTAL ORIGINS ARE THOSE OF A DEFEATED DUNGEONS CORE. AS SUCH THE CRYSTAL, NOW TOWER HAS THE ABILITY TO SUMMON, CREATE AND MODIFY CREATURES AND MONSTERS WITH THE HELP OF BIOLOGICAL MATERIALS.]
That made a lot of sense, I had almost forgotten that the crystal was once a dungeon core, now it was an origin tower, and by virtue of the bonding process, a few skills would have carried over. It made sense for the most part.
"Absorb them!" I ordered.
[NOSFERATU VAMPIRE BIOLOGICAL MATERIALS DETECTED...ABSORBED +30 BIOLOGICAL ENERGY]
[THREE BLOODCHILD VAMPIRES BIOLOGICAL MATERIALS DETECTED...…ABSORBED + 90 BIOLOGICAL MATERIALS]
• ORIGIN EARTH TOWER
• NAME:????
• MASTER: KAEL COR/??????
• LEVEL: 1 (12/200)
• AWAKENING: 23/100
• CURRENT TASKS: CONSTRUCT TOWER 1ST FLOOR
• CREATION ENERGY: 19/ 100
• SOUL ENERGY: 38/100
• BIOLOGICAL ENERGY: 120%
• EARTH ELEMENT ENERGY: 7500%
• WATER ELEMENT ENERGY: 1057%
• WIND ELEMENT ENERGY: 0%
• FIRE ELEMENT ENERGY: 0%
• METAL ELEMENT ENERGY: 345%
• WOOD ELEMENT ENERGY: 777%
• DARK ELEMENT ENERGY: 0%
• LIGHT ELEMENT ENERGY: 0%
• CRYSTAL SKILLS:[CREATE EARTH LEVEL 1/CREATE WATER LEVEL 1/CREATE WOOD LEVEL 1/ CREATE METAL LEVEL 1] [ENERGY CONVERSION LEVEL 1/ENERGY GATHERING LEVEL 1]
• OPEN MONSTER PAGE.
[BIOLOGICAL MAKEUP ANALYZED: NOSFERATU VAMPIRE, TIER 5 CREATURE/ BLOODCHILD VAMPIRE, TIER 3 CREATURE]
• AVAILABLE MONSTER TEMPLATES:
• THRALLS
• BASIC EARTH THRALL: (A LESSER AND MINDLESS UNDEAD THAT FEEDS ON BLOOD. HAS PEAK TIER 2 STRENGTH AND SPEED, AND A STURDY DEFENSE DUE TO EARTH ELEMENT. COST 30 SE, 50 BE, 400% EE PER THRALL)
• BASIC WOOD THRALL: (A LESSER AND MINDLESS UNDEAD THAT FEEDS ON BLOOD. HAS PEAK TIER 2 STRENGTH, DEFENSE AND VITALITY. CAN REGENERATE LOST BODY PARTS AS LONG AS BLOOD IS AVAILABLE. COST 30 SE, 70 BE, 400 % WE)
• BASIC METAL THRALL: (A LESSER AND MINDLESS UNDEAD THAT FEEDS ON BLOOD. HAS PEAK TIER 3 STRENGTH AND DEFENSE, BUT BELOW TIER 1 SPEED. CAN INCREASE SPEED TEMPORARILY BY DRINKING BLOOD. COST 30 SE, 100 BE, 350% ME)
This was ridiculous, the cost for making any one of this thralls were huge, well at least for this level of the tower, it made me feel discouraged to check out the remaining monster options that the tower was offering. But it could not be any worse than what I was seeing anyway.
• BLOOD BATS
• BASIC BLOOD BAT: (A SIMPLE SPECIES OF BAT THAT LIVE IN MASSIVE COLONIES AND ATTACK BY SWARMING THEIR ENEMIES. COST 1 SE, 1 BE)
• BASIC PARALYSIS BLOOD BAT: (THIS SPECIES OF BLOOD BATS ARE PATIENT HUNTERS AS THEIR EVERY BITE HAVE PARALYTIC VENOMS USED TO PARALYZE THEIR PREY DURING HUNTS, JUST LIKE THE HUMANOID COUSINS THE VAMPIRES. COST 2 SE, 5 BE)
Seriously, was this tower playing with me or something. The first monster race was powerful, but the cost to create them was insane. The second is cheap, but they're so damn weak that unless I had a lot of them, it would be hard to cause any sort of damage to my enemies. There was no hope of having a monster army until I increased the amount of biological energy and soul energy in the tower matrix. But since my options were limited to just the bats, at least for the moment I can deal with them instead. The thralls are humanoid in shape, with the only difference being the element their entire biology is made up from, individually they're strong, but the numbers advantage the bats can give me, can and will offset the singular strength of the thralls.
[GRADES AND THE AMOUNT OF MONSTERS CAPABLE OF BEING CONTROLLED CAN BE INCREASED BY EVOLVING A MONSTER WITH A COMBINATION OF SOUL, CREATION, AND BIOLOGICAL ENERGY. ALSO AT THE MOMENT TOWER CAN ONLY CONTROL FIVE OF EACH RACE SIMULTANEOUSLY, UNTIL TOWER LEVEL IS INCREASED.]
[TOWER LEVEL CAN BE INCREASED BY THE CONSTANT ALLOCATION OF SOUL ENERGY FOR TOWER GROWTH RATHER THAN TASKS.]
Why does it seem as if this tower was trying to drain me dry of every resources I currently had. It was hard not to feel wronged by the amount of work I now had in front of me. But some things actually made sense. This was an Origin earth tower, and there's nothing about it in all of the books I've read. Which meant it's existence is known only to a few, if not completely unknown itself. It's requirements would be steep as this is a piece of earth that has stood since the very dawn of Shearath itself, it was a pillar that held the world together.
But since I can only make the bats at the moment, let's get cracking. I turned to first look at the bodies of the kidnappers, and all that was left was dust. They were gone, completely sucked dry by the tower. At least now there was no evidence, if only this tower existed when Uzi tried to attack me, the outcome would definitely have been different.
[CREATE 5 PARALYSIS BLOOD BAT AND 5 BASIC BLOOD BAT: COST 15 SE, AND 30 BE: ESTIMATED TIME OF COMPLETION: 5:22:10]
[COMMENCING TASKS, NUMBER OF TASK IS NOW 2]
There was a whole lot of changes from when I first looked at the tower's stat page a few minutes ago, when I woke up. Apart for the fact that the biological energy gauge was added, a level gauge was also included. Only problem is that the tower can only increase in levels with the help of soul energy, and from the looks of things, soul energy is rapidly turning out to be the most valuable commodity and not the creation energy.
But I understood why, Soul energy was the only energy source that contained the true essence of life, there were vestiges of a soul or a consciousness intertwined within its makeup. Creation energy does not have anything like that, it just created things from nothing, but it did not have the ability to give life, or emulate it.
I think that's the reason why soul energy is used to create the monsters rather than creation energy, soul energy breaths life into them, and biological energy is more than enough to create their bodies. At the moment an avenue to obtain soul or even more biological energy was not open to me. With my connection to the tower, I knew that the more biological materials it absorbs, the more diverse the monsters it could create, not to mention the other monsters could be evolved to a higher better grade.
But with the tower focusing on it's task, a task that I can see was already being carried out as huge chunks of earth suddenly disappeared and was replaced with pristine smooth walls. The construction might affect the still unconscious Teluna and Nisi, so I proceeded to carry them outside. I placed them by the side of the tower as I went back inside to carry a cask of Nirvana cocktail blood, and a variety of tool and weapons.
I had nothing left to do at the moment, so maybe a little training and experimentation wouldn't hurt. Before my coma, I was trying to see if there was a way for me to weave my runes on any material without it exploding after a few uses. And the theory I had come up with at that time was to limit and control the amount of soul energy used to power the weave. Unfortunately I got side tracked and discovered a whole new way of controlling and manipulating my soul energy.
However I felt like I was on the cusp of a breakthrough, I was eager to create new runes rather than just BREAK, but I knew I had to push BREAK to the limit. I picked up the short sword I had used to literally break every bone in the leader's body, the rune was still on it's gleaming metal surface, glowing and occasionally pulsing.
At the moment my soul energy felt drained, after the tower had to absorb more than necessary to keep me from exploding or something. However I still had enough fuel in the tank to tinker with the rune. I released my soul energy with as much control as I could muster, which I'm afraid to say is not much, I wanted to release tiny strands of soul energy, but and amount two arms thick spewed out of my fingers.
I could control a soul fog of this size easily, not perfectly, but easily. Then I directed my soul energy over the surface of the rune, trying to see if I can establish a connection with it again. It didn't really work as it seemed as if I was rubbing my hands over the smooth surface of glass.
There was no way for me to make a connection to the rune, well not yet anyway as I prepared my self for another approach. But my heart skipped a beat, that tell tale warning it always gave me when either Asha or Xaseah were close by.
And there she was, her skin black as the darkest night and dotted with white spots that made her seem like she was wearing the night sky on her body. Her silver white hair seemed to glow under the light of the blue district as she shot towards me, with Dwayne and Asare hobbling behind her with a crowd of people close on their heels. She crashed into me with such speed that I was thrown of my feet and deposited on the ground.
She held me tight, almost as if she was scared I was going to disappear, her arms wrapped tighter around my neck with each second that passed. Then she whispered in my ears.
"You're awake.....you're awake!"
"Of course I'm awake. I was only...mmph!"
I couldn't say anything else, because Xaseah.....kissed me.