The happiness The Core felt when it saw that it was one kill closer to its goal was indescribable.

  Elated, it turned towards the corpse to absorb it but before it could do that it noticed that The Foliage Shaper didn't stop syphoning lifeforce.

  The Core paused at that as when someone dies the lifeforce disperses and if one died due to lack of lifeforce, they, naturally, wouldn't have it either.

  So what was The Foliage Shaper consuming?

  It asked her.

  The Foliage Shaper couldn't quite form words in response but answered nonetheless via concepts and emotions.

  The plant monster was eating the tasty energy the Invaders body was saturated with, it tasted it while syphoning lifeforce and this energy quickly became the most delicious thing it ever tasted.

  That alone wasn't hard as The Core knew that she never tasted anything that didn't come from other plants but the fact that the new Energy could be absorbed did surprise it.

  Mana was a type of energy that didn't want to leave its lane, it was created by a mana core and then circulated its preset paths. Any attempts to divert it without skill or huge amounts of will were met with failure, either in the form of a dispersion of mana that could lead to strange effects on the surrounding or, if the amount of mana was substantial enough, an explosion.

  This is to say, absorbing mana from another being, even with it being dead, was next to impossible. Except this wasn't mana but another type of energy.

  It had 3 to choose from: Gu, Resentment and Qi but it was leaning more towards this being Qi as the 3 invaders treated the first 2 as rarities, pointing out that they weren't there while nobody mentioned Qi until The Only One exclaimed that it couldn't sense it. Suggesting it being more common.

  Therefore The Core would presume this energy was called Qi but if it was wrong then the only thing that changed was the name so it was comfortable making an assumption.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Either way, this type of energy seemed much more receptive to being moved, if The Core could explore this deeper then it could even figure out how to make its Human Blueprint work.

  To do that it needed to have a Qi source, or even a limited storage in its own Dungeon. It couldn't do that on its own since it wasn't capable of interacting with any other type of energy however its own monsters could.

  It didn't think of such a simple solution before as it didn't think its own monsters could do something requiring delicacy and patience but if there was a monster that could, it would be The Foliage Shaper.

  , it commanded.

  The Foliage Shaper stilled and then said or rather conveyed a string of images and concepts that stunned The Core. It ate everything.

  The Dungeon Core couldn't have been more taken back, it glanced away for a second to think things through and its research materials got eaten away by its potential researcher!

  With resignation it absorbed the corpse. There weren't any memories this time as the body was consumed too late but The Core didn't think it was missing out on much as it already knew the language these people were speaking. Although, knowing who Senior Sister Wang was would be great but it could do without.

  And then it paused as something it completely didn't expect happened. It has gotten another blueprint.

  With urgency it summoned the other one to compare, did it accidentally mistake another race for a human? Was the invader an Elf with a mutation that made the ears more circular?

  When it saw the two blueprints it grew even more confused as they portrayed the exact same species, humans, with minimal differences.

  Usually when it killed the members of the same species it didn't get multiple blueprints aside from its initial one, even if one of the other representatives carried a rare genetic mutation, whether the mutation was considerable or not didn't matter.

  This time, even when the difference was as minimal as the thickness of the problematic organ, it got another blueprint.

  Was it because humans were a sapient race customarily worshiping Gods that protected them from soul dispersion or absorption? Or maybe one of the humans it killed was special in some way?

  The Core didn't know and it had no way of knowing without other humans to compare, preferably a steady source of them but only 8 more will do.

  It looked at The Foliage Shaper to make sure that the energy didn't react the same way Mana did when forced into a position it didn't want to be in or maybe wasn't meant to be in? like in the Problematic Organ, but upon finding The Foliage Shaper alive and well decided to continue with its experiments.

  , it ordered.

  The Foliage Shapers response was to ask what Qi is just when The Core was about to refocus on its experiments on the 8th floor.

  And then The Core waited for the Foliage Shaper to make another question in case it failed to clarify something else.

  Upon hearing only silence it refocused on its experiments.