'Huh?...'

Where am I?

Who am I?

I remember I was from Earth, America in particular, and that I was a teenager, but that is about it. I don't even remember my own name. Now I seem to be drifting through and endless void.

'You have been selected to become a dungeon.'

Well this is a weird sensation, kind of like having words beamed into my head.

'Um... OK?'

'Please select a starting continent:

* Imbra

* Ofai

* Augras

* Vrocrios

* Saivrais'

'I would like to start with a description of the top one.'

'Imbra, a medium sized continent completely tamed by the human race. Dungeons can expect to be discovered a few days after birth. They will immediately tamed and used for their owners profit.'

NOPE

'On to the next on please.'

'Ofai, a small forested island continent populated by many different higher races. A dungeon can expect to be discovered after a few months at maximum.'

Better, but still dangerous, I don't imagine dungeons are fast growing, so a few months might not be enough.

'Next'

'Augras, a medium size continent made up mostly of desarts and wilderness. The countries of this continent are constantly at war.'

I am getting a little worried that there may be no good starting continents.

'Next please'

'Vrocrios, the largest of all the continents, has nearly every biome possible and is untamed wild. Scaresly populated by several of the higher races along the eastern coast. A dungeon may go years without being discovered.'

Bingo... Easy start found.

'I select the continent of Vrocrios as my starting continent.'

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'Confirmed, switching to manual location selection.'

light bloomed into the void I was floating in, and suddenly I found myself floating far up in the sky looking down on an entire continent. The continent itself didn't really have a dominant shape, more like a wobbly potato. Up at what I assumed to be the north end was snow covered tundra and mountains, while down at the south end seemed to be desert and wastelands. Along the west coast was what appeared to be swamplands and jungle, the middle of the continent was mountains and forest, while the east coast was mostly plains. I could indeed see a number of cities dotting the eastern plains.

After studying the layout of the continent for several minutes, I decided on an area a good ways inland from where the settlements where. I discovered that I could move my view point by willing myself in a direction I wanted to go, and so I began moving down towards the ground. The area I had picked was a spot where three mountain ranges sort of ran into each other forming a triangular shaped valley surrounded on all sides by mountains. The valley itself was densely forested and in the verry center of the valley was a lone mountain. I wanted my entrance to be at the verry top of that mountain.

Swooping down, I discovered that this mountain's verry top was made out of stone and almost flat. It was perfect. With great excitement I discovered that I could dig by absorbing stone into myself, so I started on a downward angled tunnel. After getting about 30 feet under the surface I dug out a room that was about 20 feet by 20 feet with a 7 foot ceiling. Once done, I began to be overcome by drowsyness and I fell unconscious.

When I started to come to, my perception had completely changed. The walls of the tunnel and room I had dug now felt as if they were my skin, and I could see and hear everything that was happening within the tunnel and room at once.

A message popped into my mind.

'You have successfully formed a crystal body. You have formed in the rare crystal type: Black Obsidian shard. As a dungeon core you will draw from the natural mana that flows through the earth by use of your tunnel and room walls. The more tunnels and rooms you have, the faster you will absorb mana. Your crystal body contains what is known as a 'storage dimension' anything you absorb will be stored here and can later be deposited back into your dungeon. You are able to manipulate physical material however you wish while it is in your storage, and you will be able to condense mana in your storage into physical matter that can then be placed into your dungeon. You will be able to move your crystal body to any room in your dungeon but there is a ten minute charge time and a hour cool down period.'

ok, so that was a lot of information for me to process at once, but I think I got the gist of it. Indeed I could see a black shard of obsidian floating in the middle of my only room. Turning my attention inwards, I quickly gained access to this 'storage dimension', in it I found the stone I had absorbed when I first started digging.

Next I tried to feel this 'mana' that was supposed to be flowing through the earth. This took me close to an hour to get the hang of, but once I did I was astonished. The mana flowing through me was like a rageing river! Yet the second thing that astonished me was how terribly inefficient I was at absorbing it. The mana I was absorbing through my walls was scaresly a single percent of its total, I was scaresly receiving a trickle of mana.

I guess if I want more I will just have to expand. So I started digging a tunnel out of the side of my entry room. After only a few seconds of digging I found myself running out of mana, the tunnel I had dug was only a few feet long.

This is going to take awhile.