Life as a dungeon core is weird, you kind of just pop into existence after a large clump of mana decides to collapse in on itself and crystalize into the gem known as a dungeon core.

The first few minutes of life is disorienting, it makes sense as a few moments before you never existed. I was the same, when I was born I was scared and very confused, it was like waking up from a dream you don't remember and realizing your not in your home... that's the best way I could describe it.

You are aware that you never existed before that moment of waking up and yet you feel like you've always been alive, I was a spherical orange gem around the size of an apple trapped in a pocket of stone.

It took me awhile to get a grasp on my situation and to realize what I was, I was instinctually aware of what I was and what I was supposed to do. I am a dungeon core and my job is to claim a large territory and fill it with my creation, I do this both to protect myself and lure in outsides to linger or die in my domain to gain experience.

The more experience I have the more options and less limitations I have. There were some other things like how to create living things, how to use magic, how to design materials and some obscure things little architectural design, Information on cultures and mythology as well as media from my current world.

I guess it makes sense to know these things, If I had all this power and didn't know how to use it, It would be a waste. After coming to terms with what I am, I begun digging at random hoping to come across something interesting while I try and find an opening to the surface.

I kind just knew the first thing I should do was to look for the surface, I needed a connection to the outside to have a more stable income of mana, as a core I already generated a large amount of mana but if I wanted to get the beginner stage over and done with I needed more mana and fast.

After a couple hours of digging upward I broke into what looks like the outskirts of a city, I couldn't see far from the edge of my domain but I managed to see several tall grey structures in the distance, the light bouncing of the glass of the skyscrapers further ensured me that that was a city in the distance.

I got to work redesigning my diagonal tunnel to the surface, with more mana pouring in from the outside world the task was child's play, I carved a crude staircase out of the natural stone.

The process was fast and easy and in just an hour my stairs were finished, now I had to look into fixing the issue of my tunnel collapsing on itself.

I pondered how I was going to fix the problem, should I compress stone together? or should I try and add pillars to add more support? the idea popped into my head.

I filled the stone in my territory with as much mana as I could spare and the result was the stone becoming darker and denser, my issue of structural integrity was over for now.

I carved out ten square rooms in a straight line, each were around 10 meters long and 10 meters wide with a height of around 4 meters, between each room was a hall around 3 meters tall, 2 meters wide and 30 meters long, all halls had 10 meter deep pit falls below random tiles.

It was a simple thing to make, just carve out a space below a group of tiles and make a thin layer of stone that resembles the surrounding tiles.

The ceilings of the halls could randomly fall apart and drop some heavy stones onto invaders heads, this trap was less simple as it used magic to work, I created some strings of invisible mana that would act like trip wires, once something would cross them it would destabilize the ceiling above it causing the debris to fall a top the targets head.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I made it so they would appear randomly in every hall and change every 12 hours, today there could be 7 of these traps and tomorrow there could be 5 or 9, I don't know it's random.

After passing through all 10 rooms and the hazardous hallways you travel through one last hall before you reach me, my core room was 5 meters in length, width and height.

After carving out the skeleton of the first floor I began to add some more details, I was going for the decerped old castle dungeon vibe or the abandoned mine vibe.

The floor already had tiles, so I decided the remove and break a few to make the place look older than it did, I filled the area with stones and dust to drive home that fact. I gave the walls a brick texture with some missing, broken and cracked or just a few bricks on the floor.

The ceiling had a few purely decorative support beams here and there, a few cracks running along the roof to keep invaders paranoids.

With that done, the only thing left was for my monsters, which I already had an idea for. At the moment I only have the ability to make tiny and small monsters.

Tiny monsters were anywhere from an inch to a foot in size while small monsters could be around a meter in height, for the tiny option I could make five different monster and for the small option I could only have three.

Were I made it to the surface I encounter a few normal animals, but the three I had in mind for now were for the foxes, the lizards and the rabbits.

I had glanced at the mythology of some of the human cultures as well as some of the media they indulge in, the first idea I had was to make a small dragon but that would defeat the point of dragons being special creatures.

If I had dragons or dragon like creatures being a common monster, It would lessen the surprise on my delvers faces if they every encountered one of my future monsters.

I didn't want to make a miniature dragon anymore but I still wanted to make something draconic, So I decided to make kobolds. Standing at the maximum height of a meter tall, sporting green or red scales, yellow eyes with black slit pupils and teeth sharp enough to but dogs to shame were my little scaly boys... girls? oh wait they don't have genders... yet.

They had four fingers on each hand and three toes on each foot, with plantigrade legs and a tail as long as they are tall, their faces were a little more stubby and cute... I totally did that to lure the delvers into not wanting to kill them and not because I wanted my first monsters to be cute.

I placed 100 across the ten room, 10 kobolds for each room. each kobold was equipped with a grey shirt and brown leather pants personally make to accommodate their tails by yours truly.

Each kobold was randomly equipped with a piece of basic gear, the five pieces of basic gear that was available were the shield and sword, the great shield, a dagger, a bow and arrow or a spear.

each was made from normal brown wood and quality iron. The little guys were like me in the way they woke up, they didn't know what to do until their instincts spoke up and they got to guarding, they were as smart as normal adults and just as strong despite their diminutive size.

I was unsure whether it would be right to send an intelligent creature to die in order to protect me at first, but some part of me spoke up and reminded me that all my creatures in terms of monsters and unique ones would respawn after a day or two.

If anything they could learn from each defeat they faced and challenge they would overcome, I enjoyed the idle chatter of the kobolds speaking about... stuff... what would they speak about? they were just made a few hours ago... ok I checked, they're just speaking about the outside, it seems that just like me they had common knowledge on things like the outside and how to use their weapon, it's neat and convenient.

I felt a little bad for them so I made them some grass to make beds, after a few hours of watching the tiny lizard men attempt to make beds and laughing at them the whole time, they decided to pile up the grass into a corner and flatten it, they would either be sleeping or practicing with their weapons.

Being dungeon creatures meant that they only required mana to stay alive and thus I didn't need to make any plants... yet. My plan for the next floor is going to be more nature based, but for now I should just wait for someone to show up.

My instincts tell me I need some experience before I'm able to make another floor, the players would have noticed my arrival and should be hear any day now.

While I wait I will work on the plants and monsters for the next floor, I hope they don't take too long to find me.