Lucas opened his eyes to a black void once more. The domain core floated with the void as well. Lucas tried to speak but no words could come out. Luckily, he could move within the abyss so he gently drifted towards the tree.

On his way, he felt it nudge at his mind as it asked for access. Though uneasy, Lucas accepted. His reward for the [Quest] had been "Link with the domain core" after all. If he was too cowardly to accept the reward after all that bloodshed and fighting, it would be a joke.

Besides, from the transformations and skills the previous domain lord and tree men showcased, linking with the core was certainly a boon rather than a bane. Probably.

When the tree's power synced up with Lucas' Psyche, his senses broke through the confines of his mortal coil and spread throughout the cavern.

No, it was more than that. He didn't just see the cavern in its entirety, he felt it, he became it. Every plant, rock, and monster felt like an intrinsic part of him.

This transcendent moment lasted for an instant before it ended. Lucas shot awake with a deep gasp as his instincts sought out any possible dangers.

With manic eyes, Lucas spread his senses out throughout the cavern. To his surprise, his range easily surpassed the one kilometer range as it raced throughout the cavern.

He didn't even feel a slight prick in his skull but he felt his Spirit energy rapidly dropping so he hastily turned it off.

"Whoa… what just—"

He was cut off by the refreshing chime of a notification.

{Requirements met, Achievement – [Domain Lord], acquired. Nice work!}

Lucas grinned wolfishly as he opened the Achievement's description.

{[Domain Lord] – You have successfully linked with a domain core, its world is your oyster.}

"Strange, there's no reward? Can you explain why, Wiki?"

{You don't have access to such information.}

Lucas rolled his eyes as he mumbled.

"Of course not. I want to understand the bare minimum of my situation? Blasphemy!"

At least he managed to cheer himself up with that last line. He turned to the domain core and asked it directly.

"So… what are you?"

He felt the tree's omnipresent intent hone in on him. It took a few moments before linking with Lucas again. This time, Lucas saw a thought provoking scene.

His Mind was brought to a point in time when the cavern was just a regular cave with an unusual amount of Spirit energy flowing through it. Something… ordered and implacable changed that.

It wasn't an instantaneous process and it didn't even seem deliberate. One thing that was for sure however was the fact that a transcendent law influenced the Spirit energy to flow in very special patterns.

These transformations went on for decades, possibly centuries. The fights between the cavern inhabitants, the climate, natural disasters, foreign life forms visiting the cavern, and much more were all facets of the domain core's formation.

Eventually the core was born at the center of the cavern, warping reality in its wake and creating the Yggorin in the process.

Lucas suddenly woke up in reality once more and almost flew out of his skin. More than a little agitated, Lucas said,

"Could you not do that every time?"

Like a chided child, the domain core retracted its intent. Its branches swayed noticeably weaker than before.

"Crash."

Crash chimed in, its voice dim but better than before.

"You can speak to it? Are you sure you will be okay?"

"(￣ω￣)ノ(￣ω￣)ノ(￣ω￣)ノ"

With a nonchalant affirmation, Crash expressed its confidence.

"Okay bud. You work on that, I have to try out the last rune. "

"Crash."

"Hmm."

After that soft nod, Lucas laid on the ground completely. He did his best to calm his mind and Spirit energy as he recalled what he felt was the last workable Rune. It was also the most difficult Rune he had in his mind.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The Rune was structured as an octagon containing two nested rhombuses. All together, there were sixteen unique sigils on the Rune.

Each and every one of these Sigils were interconnected, causing the Rune to look like a mind numbing mess.

To make it worse, several Sigils were quite damaged and difficult to fully make out. This was the main reason why his previous efforts of using it failed.

"Welp, let's get started."

With a prepared mind, Lucas carved out a rectangular rock and began his experimentation. Having learned from his experiments earlier, Lucas used the least amount of Spirit energy to activate the first sigil.

Unsurprisingly, the test failed as the rock imploded on itself before releasing a concussive blast wave. Lucas didn't even flinch as he carved out a new rock and continued his experimentation.

Ten trials in—no progress.

Twenty trials in—no progress.

Fifty trials in—no progress.

One hundred trials in—no progress.

On the hundred and third trial, Lucas' expression had sank as deep as a well. His eyes burning with a barely concealed frustration, the markings of a monster at its limits of patience.

He gently activated one of the center Runes he nicknamed Dick. You see Dick had this bad habit of always redirecting his energy into itself when he tried activating other Runes in the center. But when he activated it from the start, it always caused the rocks to detonate violently.

BOOM!

As expected, the rock blew up in his hand.

"Ohh, fuck off!"

With that frustrated yell, Lucas stopped using rocks. He figured his body was a much better conduit and he would be able to guide his Spirit energy much more dynamically if he used it directly from his skin.

Without any hesitation, he engraved the octagonal Rune in his right paw. Rather than play it safe by activating any other Rune, his eyes flashed with fervor. Like a gambler desperate for a win, he activated Dick.

BOOM!!

A blinding explosion immediately erupted from his position and smashed him into the domain core like a fly on a windshield.

Coughing in pain, Lucas peeled himself off the tree and assessed his injuries. Seeing his mangled arm and almost half of his Spirit energy mysteriously gone, Lucas sighed,

"This is going to take more effort than I thought… no matter. I will keep pushing, there's definitely something I'm missing."

With such a mindset, Lucas laid back on the floor as his injuries healed. His mind racing for a solution.

On the second day, Lucas thought of a new approach. Who said he had to activate each Sigil one at a time? Couldn't he just activate them all at once?

All very valid questions, putting it into practice was another matter. He sought to test this hypothesis with his already functioning Hardening Rune. Due to its relatively simple structure and energy flow, it was Lucas' first pick. And with his much beefier Mind, he was confident he could make it work.

His first test on his paw was a complete failure which led to his flesh disintegrating. He nonchalantly healed it and got back to work. After tens of experiments using both his Life and Spirit energy, he found that his Life energy was better suited for the task given how dynamically it responded to his intent and flesh.

Two days later, Lucas had already lost count at the number of trials he had to perform. With both his Physique and Spirit standing at 5 and Mind at 4, sleep had become an option not a necessity.

His numerous experiments finally bore fruit as Lucas activated his Hardening Rune. Something finally clicked in his mind and the Rune flared to life instantaneously as if the energy was cycling itself into it. Though it didn't increase the Rune's power, it made it activate almost as fast as his thoughts.

"Cool…It's almost like… I have— no, my body has developed an instinct to automate my energy cycling? Interesting…"

Thud.

He immediately passed out on the floor with his orifices bleeding.

Two weeks later…

Lucas still sat in the tree men's village looking rather shabby. His fur was very overgrown and unkempt. Dirt and grim caked his body but Lucas couldn't care less, his sole focus was the Rune on paw. He carefully studied its enigmatic structure for minutes on end before he sighed.

When he woke up from his previous black out, he began studying his other Runes and figured out how to activate them instantaneously as well. He had succeeded with each of them but when it came to the octagonal Rune, he was stumped.

To begin with, he had no clue what the activation process was and even if he did, the Rune had many errors in its pathways and Sigils. Even though he had corrected them to the best of his capabilities, he didn't know if he had re-wired the Rune into a bomb or something worse. Given his luck, he really didn't want to test it randomly.

"16!… That's how many possible ways I can try to activate this Rune… that's more than twenty trillion tries that are guaranteed to fail in catastrophic ways. With everything I have learnt over these few weeks and my [Runic intuition], I could narrow it down to only 16 tries. I just had to eliminate Sigils like, Dick, Shella, and so on to get a stable starting point. If these all fail… I will be forced to shelve the Rune for now."

Taking a deep breath, rested for about five minutes then began the first activation. His right hand spontaneously combusted at the attempt.

Casually clenching his paw, the fire got extinguished by his roiling Life energy and he moved to the next attempt.

Each and every attempt brought about a harmful effect due to his failures. Be it freezing his arm over, disintegrating flesh and bones, the limb simply exploding/imploding or even stranger effects like it moving in slow-motion or even transmuting his arm to different materials.

By the sixteenth attempt it would be a lie to say Lucas wasn't feeling more than a little nervous. But he steeled himself and activated the rune. In a flash, the Rune blazed with a crimson light as it activated. The complex mesh of Sigils and pathways beaming with energy.

Everything suddenly clicked in place and the Rune stabilized. Lucas' eyes went wide with joy. With a smile on his face, he said—

CRACK!

With his mouth hung open, he heard a teeth shattering crack sound coming from his arm. It was now badly mutilated with the Rune now a garbled mess. With a deep sigh, Lucas healed his hand and sank into silence.

His gaze cloudy as he contemplated his next actions.

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