Chapter 10

As I finished analyzing Nagt, I realized I could have caused a problem when I built the circuit inside its skull. Due to the circuit, any developing circuits would have been ignored by the flowing mana. I hadn't noticed any, but that didn't mean they wouldn't have developed when it hit the first composite rune stage.

Glrt's turn. How to drive enough mana to force maturity into another being without the use of a circuit? Another issue would be ensuring all of its circuits developed instead of only a few. Difficult questions indeed. Coincidentally, I already had the perfect method for the first. A solid link already existed between all of my available mana and my will-core, which was directly connected to its will-core. As for the second, it would take a lot more effort on my part but Glrt's will was open to me. I could direct it as I saw fit, assuming Glrt lacked the intent to stop me. With Glrt's weak intent, that wasn't an issue.

I started channeling all of my mana into Glrt, making sure to keep watch over every inch of its body to make sure no budding runes died and every rune was fed equally. Especially within the brain. Any runes that developed there would be much more valuable to me than any of the others, so I had to make sure any possible rune got more mana than any mere body rune.

It didn't take long for me to realize how different the growth of the two creatures truly was. Few of their runes were the same in construction, though many were the same in effect. I also proved that I'd stunted Nagt with my circuit. It wasn't until the first composite stage that the runes manifested, and they were incredibly weak, but they manifested. I made sure to feed them until they'd matched the rest of Glrt's circuits before I continued with the maturation.

Unfortunately, they weren't will-related. They were mana-related, though. Instead of forming a pure mana-core, like I created with my circuits, these runes turned the brain into a mana-core. Without will circuits and mana accumulation the mana would be useless, but at least there was core formation taking place. I'd simply need to build them into Glrt's will circuits. Simply having the mana would increase Glrt's resistance to magic, though. Having dense will would stop the construction of internal circuits, but having dense mana as well would reduce any mana-based damage by a significant margin as the foreign mana would spend itself rendering Glrt's mana inert before it could do damage.

I barely had enough mana to advance Glrt to the third stage of its runes. There wasn't even the faintest vision of the third composite's shape, but I didn't mind. I was working with mere basic runes. I had plenty of room for growth. As did my worshippers. Glrt's brain was almost entirely crystalline, now. So that was a plus. If I ever needed to draw on some extra mana I had a large supply in my massive worshippers. Glrt had more by quantity, but Nagt could accumulate more on its own. Maybe my stunting wasn't so bad a thing. Glrt was much more balanced, though. It had no second composite circuits built to the third circle, but all of its runes were second composites built to the second circle.

Were the two to fight, I wasn't sure which would come out victorious. Personally, I feared Glrt more. While Nagt could hit harder, Glrt could easily evade. It was more based on skill, and I doubted Glrt's skill as much as its intent, but the potential was greater.

To even the scales I manually altered the path of Nagt's mana flow to be even across its body. There was little screaming this time, which made me happy. Their intent was as flighy as ever, but the effect prolonged screaming was causing eddies in the surrounding mana.

However, that was all secondary. It was time to give them will circuits so they could be proper worshippers of myself. Now knowing that composite runes existed, I widened the circuit construction ten-fold. The cost of setting up such a circuit was massive, but I felt it was important. Luckily, it had taken me so long to learn the appropriate runes that I had enough mana accumulated to create them.

Their core runes were lust, as that was the strongest intent I managed to induce in them. The first circle contained will control, mana accumulation, intent reinforcement, and will reinforcement. It was horribly basic, losing the core rune to be a mere intent-solidifying rune was such a waste. Luckily, the lust rune wasn't a basic one, having sixteen faces in circuit form. There was a lot of potential for the future, so it wasn't as bad as it would have been had I not known of composite runes. It was a mere four faces fewer than the will rune, wich I still held as the apex rune.

As I looked at the glorious work I'd finished, I considered another option I hadn't considered possible before. If composite runes worked, circuit construction was more fluid than I'd originally believed. Was I limited to classic circuits, even given the ridiculous potential of composite runes?

What if i could build a circuit with the true rune? It wouldn't be flat, as circuits were, so the cost in mana would be comparatively enormous, but the same could be said of composite runes. The farther I'd pushed the circle for their will circuits, the more it had leaked. The leakage stopped once I erased the idea of a circular formation and gave the circle a complementary structure to the number of faces on the core rune. If that was the true principle, could that not be applied to the true rune rather than a simplified version?

I immediately started building a true will rune within my will-core. If this didn't work...I wasn't sure what would happen. Maybe it would simply fail to create a circuit like using runes in the earth that didn't apply.

Ignoring my doubts and fears, I pressed on. Coalescing a hundred-faced circle ten times farther out than an average circle took a lot of mental pressure. The hardest part was lining each face up perfectly with the will rune. Keeping all of it stable simultaneously was highly strenuous. I could feel my will being used up as it never had been before. I'd used will to build circuits, but that cost mana. I'd felt strain on my will doing many things at once, like monitoring all of the circuits in my worshippers, but it hadn't depleted my will. Even the threat of being dissolved when I spread it too thin wasn't actually losing any will.

It was new and extremely terrifying, but I'd come too far to stop now. Almost half of my will had been consumed by the time I realized it was happening. All I needed now was the first circle of runes. That was the easiest part. I knew instinctively where they needed to be, and the four runes appeared almost instantly.

It didn't stabilize, though. I could still feel locations that required my attention. I tried replicating the four runes on those places as well, but they evaporated to reinforce the original four. So no repeats. Well...time to see if I knew enough will-related runes to stabilize this true circuit. I didn't want to use the runes that would harm me, I'd taken them off of my will-core circuit for a reason, but I only knew twenty different beneficial runes and I was bleeding will too fast for comfort.

Finally, when the twentieth rune was constructed, I felt the true circuit activate. All of my mana-cores were instantly drained. I had far from enough mana to truly activate the true circuit, but I had enough to imprint the vaguest impression into my will-core. I wouldn't need to reform it, which was a wonderful thing. I was almost as drained of will as I was of mana.

That was when the fear and self-reprimanding began. I'd convinced myself I wasn't as rash and uncautious as my Creator, bound to be devoured by one of my own creations. What a fool. I'd almost destroyed myself once again. I probably wouldn't even understand how close I'd come to destroying myself until the true circuit activated. Then I'd be able to properly know how stupid I was to do what I did. Why did I continually alter myself in ways that could be destructive? I knew that perfection was what I sought, but that didn't mean I sought my own destruction. Did it?

Was I self-destructive? The more I considered it, the harder it was to disprove. Seeking perfection in an imperfect form would require me to undergo changes to myself. Changes to myself were inherently linked with the risk of self-destruction. Then...I was self-destructive because I sought perfection? Well...I couldn't abandon my only drive. I'd have to get used to self-destructive risks, then. I mustered some will to communicate with my worshippers. "I'm going to sleep for a while. Don't try to wake me." I couldn't have them destroying my constructs, after all. That would require me to put my primary body at risk again, which defeated the whole purpose of entombing myself in the first place. With that done, I stopped using any mana that wasn't tied directly to keeping my constructs operational and spent the rest into my true circuit.