I withdrew my awareness from the bond I’d formed with the core. Normally, a cultivator would absorb a creature core like this and hope to learn a new spell or empower an existing one. I wondered why Astrid had saved this one.

“Kyrine,” I called out, looking up toward the ceiling. “Can you hear me?”

Immediately, I felt an unseen presence brush the hand in which I was holding the core.

“Yes, Jeremy, I can hear you. What’s this?” Kyrine’s voice spoke out of the air, and Astrid looked surprised. Kyrine was no longer speaking directly in my head. Instead, her voice seemed to come from the very air around us, directionless yet strangely intimate. It was actually kind of creepy. I might have a word with her later about her taste for the overdramatic.

“Oh,” she said, and I felt her unseen hand brush the creature core. “Is that a special treat for me?”

“If you absorb this core, will it allow me to summon the creature whose core this is?” I asked her.

“Indeed it will,” she replied, sounding pleased. “Hold it up, and I shall consume it!”

On the word ‘consume’, her voice boomed loudly through the echoey training hall. Astrid, to my surprise, drew back, her eyes wide with fear at Kyrine’s dramatics. Surely, this was not the first time Astrid had heard the dungeon core’s disembodied voice?

Well, I could deal with that in a moment. For now, I held up the creature core, and I felt again the tickling sensation as Kyrine's invisible presence enveloped the crystal orb. It shimmered, glowed brightly for a moment, then dissolved into a cloud of blue dust. The dust rose above my palm like a mini twister, vanishing into the air a foot or so above my hand. In a few moments, the orb was gone.

Kyrine groaned with appreciation, and an updated stat readout appeared to the left of my vision. I reached for it with my left hand and swiped it into my field of view for a closer look.

New monster added to dungeon’s database!