Slowly I began to dig into the soft rich soil and made a big enough hole. The soft whispers of my class guided me, slowly and lightly I picked a nearby trimming from one of the plants we had collected from the Dragur layer. Placing it in the hole I covered the excavated soil around it. I had forged a set of gardening tools to focus on my neglected class of [Cave Gardener] which I knew would be vital back on earth. Looking across I saw the [Giants Blood Mushroom] the mushroom which had sat in my pocket for sometime was still pulsing with magic. The soil around it was great for the plants many of which had begun to wither without it.

  Testing my [Floramancy] I felt the tendril of Mana hesitating unwilling to move from what I had long sense felt was my soul. Something about gardening the wither it be the smell of soil the simple easy work, or something else made me feel a touch more in tune with myself. My soul was interesting to say the least, it was stretched a small ball orbited in the center but two thin strings came out from it leaking the energy from the others. By paying close attention to the surface I could see the parts where the system had patched it, like plaster on a hole in the wall. The distilled beliefs and concepts of mortals seeped in through from one. The Energy of Paradox that carried the dual and conflicting concepts of Void, enteral darkness, and Light that spawned from nothing flowed from Lux.

  Right now those energies alongside my own mana and cosmic power were lapping at the wounds in my soul. Until it was fixed I would be unable to use energy from Noble or Lux, along with my own magic. It felt uncomfortable to be this weak even if I was several times stronger then I was a few months ago, although time was unmeasurably in the caves.

  Returning to my work I dug my trowel into an empty part of the soil and pressed down. The blade of the trowel dug in and lifted it up. Reaching for a nearby seed I planted it into the new hole and recovered it.

  The movements blurred together slowly, I felt mechanical but In soothing way. Dig, place, cover, and repeat until the garden was planted. Then taking a water can I walked over to the creek that babbled through the cavern we had claimed I filled it with the cool water and then placed the lid on and began to slowly water the plants, making sure to darken the soil and not drown the fledgling plants. That task down I crouched down next the mushroom and watched for a bit, it was gestating into something new, something greater.

  'Hey Kien, I need you to see something' Anastasia told me telepathically.

  'got it, on my way' I replied as I stood up from the soil dusted my clothes off and made my way to Anastasia's webbed laboratory.

  Ducking to enter the laboratory I saw a series of half made puppets each one containing strings in complex shapes. I understood Anastasia's puppets as being computers with the silk strings acting as pathways for Mana though that was as about as deep as I could understand the constructs. Right now I saw Anastasia picking at what was replication of a human brain made out of silk strands.

  'Alright Kien, I'm double checking my work but I think I have a rudimentary brain working hear, the problem is that it's way to Mana intensive and it doesn't seem to want to hold memories for whatever reason.' Anastasia stated and I reeled back for a moment as tried to grasp what she had said.

  Hmm, a rudimentary brain, sitting down at a stool especially made for the situations where Anastasia wanted to pick my brain (figuratively speaking) about some issue she was having. Thinking about it, an issue with creating memories might be due to a lack of actual stimulus or the frontal cortex where short term memories are held before moving to wherever Anastasia had placed the hippocampus.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  'well first off how are you trying to create memories? Afterall you need actual things to remember.' I explained, I had feeling like being some strange magical tech support, wait did they have those? Like oh yes I'm calling because I can't seem to get this ritual right? And the guy on the mirror asks if you have quenched and then relit the candles?

  'Kien your spacing off' Anastasia said cutting through my meandering thoughts not realizing she had been speaking.

  'what where you saying again?' I asked her sheepishly.

  'I was telling you that I was rigging the prototype to a puppet in order to collect stimulus to form memory, and then it bounces around for a while and fizzles out' Anastasia explained to which I nodded.

  'Alright sounds like issue with either the prefrontal cortex or the hippocampus' I explained.

  'I checked those but theirs another issue somewhere else, the best way that I can describe it is that the memories are fail at the long term stage, as soon as memories begin to transition to long term the process corrupts the memory and it's useless.' Anastasia explained frustration clearly evident.

  'can I see the process, it all happens using Mana right so should be able to see it right?' I asked maybe by cutting out the middle man of information I could better help, afterall something that might be unimportant or escape Anastasia observation might give a clue into the problem.

  'yeah no problem, and you should be able to see where the memories are forming they tend to be more mana dense so they stand out' Anastasia confirmed, before lifting the proto brain into a nearby puppet which had several strings connecting to other puppets and judging by the way it's rigged up the other puppets were giving their access Mana to the prototype puppet. When the Mana flowed into the puppet it was slow at first but when the first tendril touched the brain it was like a vortex and for a moment my Mana senses blinded by the amount of Mana used but then it passed and it was a small reactor of Mana. The puppet began to move about and straining my senses I tracked as the new information entered through the nerves and then flowed into the frontal lines and everything was fine it bobbed around for a half a minute roughly before it slowly moved towards the stem and I saw it half dead in its tracts like it was waiting for something and then the Mana intake seemed to massively increase before crapping out.

  'I think I might have a hint about your issue?' I stated stroking my chin like I was wise mentor. In reality I was flying by the seat of my pants, and half remembered biology lessons and midnight video deep dives.

  'what! What is it!?' Anastasia said as she danced around having already powered off the puppet with the brain attached.

  'one I think you may have stayed a little to truthful to the human brain, and second you didn't put in emotions did you?' I asked as by what I could only half remember that emotions gain their emotional significance during compression.

  'why would I give it emotions? It's a proto type im going to turn it on and off again putting emotions would just be cruel, but I see what you are talking about if the memories are waiting for emotional chemicals that aren't coming then yeah... Alright you can go now' Anastasia waved me away and I chuckled to myself before departing.

  ...

  Realm of the Fungal Folk, Lord Alvest's P.O.V

  ...

  A new challenger has arrived in the new floor, we had lucked out by being an extra tutorial faction. However our neighbors were not friendly in the least. One faction was skeletons that vaugely resembled the same species as Kien and the other where something called badgermoles that were insanely aggressive. These though were meer opportunities for growth. Just as bone powder main the finest fertilizer so would our enemies.

  A tall timid giant youth stood to the side, he had been chosen as my apprentice and I would train in him in the ways of statecraft. His name was Bogrund and he was alright though I had yet to have enough time to actually get a measure.

  "Bogrund, what do you think of this?" I asked him pointing to a stone tablet embossed with a new piece of legislation, it was primarily about instituting an apprentice program for not only the giantlings but for all of the young fungi on their growth cycle. Under the Monarch's guidance more fungi where evolving. It was a new age, and already the Fungi, a race that had never worshipped did so. Not over the top but moreso like asking for help and guide.