The Only One was a pleasant invader. It died quickly to the Foliage Shaper, or as quickly as possible, and introduced The Core to a new type of energy, Qi.

  The former was much more appreciated now that it knew how dreadful Invaders can be and had also established a new weapon in its arsenal that the Foliage Shaper hadn't learned to use yet, on its orders, as The Core didn't want to risk it at that time. Either way, it had expectations when it came to its monster counterpart. And what did he do?

  He killed himself in ways previously thought impossible.

  With a lethargic but steady wave of mana, it reinforced the connection between itself and the remaining humans, wanting an explanation.

  The answer it got was confusing, mainly because it received one simultaneously from the leftover humans; each of them had a different perspective on the event that transpired, most of which were tinged with an air of panic and horror, as they themselves were unsure what exactly happened, hence the panic.

  It ignored all responses that were simply images of finding him dead on the ground, focusing on two that weren't that. Although those still didn't reveal the actual cause and were as good as if the two humans had found him on the ground like the rest. For he suddenly collapsed and died.

  No one saw what he did exactly beforehand that might have caused it. The Core was thus forced to do an autopsy, something that it should have done, admittedly, first. It had just wrongly assumed the other humans would be useful for something, being the ones who notified it of the situation.

  The autopsy was worryingly unclear about the real cause of death. It wasn't poison, which was meant to be a leading cause of death for this floor, as he didn't ingest anything, having no need for such when he could subsist only on mana like any other monsters, nor would the plants ever forcefully excrete poison in a poisoning attempt against a fellow dungeon monster. Thus, The Core was thoroughly confused by his lack of a pulse or breathing.

  The other showcases of autonomy also revealed that everything was working correctly before death, with cell death only happening after supplies were cut off.

  Out of the currently apparent options, The Core proceeded to check the bodies of the other humans. Maybe during the process of remaking them, it made a one-time mistake that consolidated into this? If so, it could compare, for the autonomy of the corpses was still fresh in its mind.

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  Yet as it checked their adapted energy circulation systems, which were working as intended without any apparent differences to the deceased, it quickly got distracted by the fascinating way the mana behaved inside them, unlike in any other mana circulatory system it had observed in its other monsters.

  It must have been a result of the problematic organ, for what else could be responsible for the mana to coagulate inside of it? It still circulated, of course, as The Core made the necessary adjustments to allow it to do so, but it did so slowly at the beginning of its journey out of the organ, almost as if it didn't want to leave, before returning to a pace that The Core would categorize as normal and then speeding up when it was once again about to return to the starting point. Then, once it was back again in the organ, it joined together into a ball at its center that disjointed just a bit slower than as it coagulated; but since it had mana joining it constantly, it created the illusion of being eternal.

  Weirdly enough, The Core was sure it hadn't happened when it first created humans. Therefore, it asked them what they had done to cause such a change.

  The response was instantaneous, although it was followed by an unnecessary question, or more like a singular image of the corpse and an oddly desperate wave of emotions about what happened to their now-dead companion.

  The Core thus disintegrated the corpse and recreated him from the blueprint along with the necessary changes for him to live, thinking that was the reason for the distress. After all, corpses can be quite unpleasant to be around for living beings, but it didn't bother with a direct reply, too busy with the implications of what the humans resoundingly conveyed to it.

  They followed their instincts to guide the mana a certain way. A norm for monsters, nothing to amaze, yet the difference between the instincts The Core was met with and this caused such an emotion.

  What use could this ball have? Monster instincts related to mana handling, not spells, but the basic framework of how they would be constructed upon which the monster would then weave spells into existence.

  But what foundation could this be? The ball was just that: a ball of mana that wasn't even that even. There were no complicated nor simple frameworks inside, just pure mana.

  The ball of the human it was currently observing flickered out of existence for a moment, then two, before returning to its previous existence, much smaller this time, causing The Core to look outward.

  The human was sad, devastated even, by what it could glean from his mind, which was all that it contained. Apparently, he was attached to the one that had just died and was thus disappointed that the new Only One's counterpart was what it was instead of a revived copy of his friend with memories intact. The Core was sure he would manage; the brain and therefore personality were the same. It had never had this happen to any other pack monsters, but it was sure it was nothing important.

  But what fascinated it more were the implications that the emotional state influenced the mana circulation! That never happened with its other monsters, so it simply know how different emotions affected the ball.