Chapter One

The gem had been making a lot of changes since destroying the invaders and gaining their knowledge. The invaders that it managed to kill this time were all experienced adventurers and had raided many other dungeons. Thanks to this, they knew how dungeons worked. This let the gem examine how it was different from other dungeons and see where it might be able to improve. The place where it saw the most obvious room for improvement was the creation of what the humans called “dungeon assistants.” Apparently, many other dungeons they raided had creatures that helped manage the defenses other than the main core. Those assistants made it possible for dungeons to have larger territories, more intricate defenses, and a constant watch over the area the assistants were responsible for.

Of course the invaders didn’t know how to create assistants, but that wasn’t important. Just knowing that it was possible to create them was enough. If they were meant to watch over an area in the same way that it did then they obviously needed to be made in a similar manner. This gave a starting point. The assistants would be cores given consciousness.

Experimentation started with the smallest and least valuable of its cores. The ones from small creatures like rabbits, birds, and bees. Then it started to work. In the past it had been able to imbue stones and cores with ideas like heat and fire. What it tried to do this time was similar. It took the cores and focused on the concept of consciousness while weaving mana into them. Then it ran into a problem. The cores shattered before the concept was fully ingrained in them. The gem tried putting the concept into a few more of the smaller cores to make sure that it was a problem with the size and had similar results every time.

That meant the next experiments needed to be down with a larger core. That meant it was time to experiment with the only moose core. The moose’s core survived the process of having consciousness imbued into it, but then the issues began. The consciousness that the core had wasn’t very useful. It was barely conscious enough to draw in enough mana to survive, let alone manage a portion of territory.

That attempt was close enough to success that the gem was willing to risk one of its most valuable cores. It took the core from the tier two adventurer that had wielded wind and began to imbue it. This time the process went much more smoothly. After half the time it took with the moose’s core, the human’s core was already done. The gem increased the flow of mana into the core and then waited for the results. It didn’t take long before something happened. As the core got more mana air started to coalesce around it until it formed one small human shaped blur.

The blur sent out the concepts of confusion and wonder, and the gem realized it didn’t know how to speak. The gem gathered its mana and pushed the knowledge of language into the newborn creature. This actually took longer than the creation of the creature itself, but by the end of the day it was done. The new creature sat in front of the gem’s tree and asked questions as quickly as the gem could answer them.

“What am I?”

“You are my assistant.”

“Where do I come from?”

“You are made from my mana, my will, and a mana core.”

“Why did you make me?”

“I want to make my territory larger. To do that I need assistants that will watch over parts of it for me.”

“What part am I supposed to watch?”

This was the first question that gave the gem pause. It would make sense to have an assistant in the tunnels because that is where all the adventurers enter from. On the other hand, it was obvious that the assistant was wind based. The tunnels had a limited supply of that and would probably limit the assistants effectiveness. That left the gem without an obvious favorite, so it asked the assistant

“Do you have somewhere you want to monitor or conditions that you work best under?”

“I want wind. Let me manage the windy part of your territory.”

After that unsurprising answer the assistant was set to watch over the walkways among the valley’s canopy. Then the gem called for Mav.

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“Move this core to the top of the tall tree in the center of the valley. I will create a ladder but you will have to climb up yourself. Any questions?”

Mav shook her head “Mav move core now.” She started to walk away before turning back towards the tree “ What about rewards for drybolds? Drybolds do good fighting invaders. Many drybolds die.”

That seemed reasonable enough so the gem said “Ok. What drybolds want?”

Mav instantly started listing off demands “Drybolds want feast, and new mounts, and new houses, and..”

“Stop” The gem interrupted Mav there. “That's enough rewards for the fight. Send some drybolds to pick up fish and honey for feast. I will direct the wolves to give you more cubs for mounts. For the housing I will give you an axe and let you cut down some trees.”

“Thank you great holy tree. Drybolds motivated with reward.” Then Mav left. That meant there was some time to plan before checking in on how the assistant liked the valley canopy. It then started to think about where to expand next.

There were a few obvious places to consider. The area around its island was in consideration, but it had many problems. First was the amount of water. The river surrounding its island was large. That meant claiming the useful lands on the sides of the river would result in a lot of waste. The territory under the river that it would be claiming was worthless. The water was fast enough that it wasn’t feasible to station defenders there and it was extremely unlikely that invaders would come from there anyway.

The next consideration was expanding further behind its valley. Expansion there was likely to immediately lead to useful territory. There would be more room to grow plants, more room to raise defenders, and more defense if someone ever tried to attack from its second entrance. All of which was good, but it wouldn’t provide much of a boost to its growth. The valley it currently had was already enough to supply its current mana needs and no invader had even made it halfway through the valley so it wasn’t like the invaders needed more room to explore.

The third option was to expand forward. The gem had read enough memories from invaders to know that expansion towards their territory would likely be taken as a form of aggression. That may cause them to attack with intent to kill instead of just raiding for resources, so that was out.

Expanding sideways was another option. This one was interesting because what lay beyond the walls was a true mystery. As far as its senses go there was only stone, but its senses did not go very far out of its territory. Who knew what was just five or ten feet further away? This option was tempting just to satisfy that bit of curiosity, but the gem knew that it was probably just going to be more stone and suppressed that urge to consider its last option. Going straight down.

Expanding straight downwards seemed like the best option for a number of reasons. First, it would be enormously useful as camouflage. From the recent deaths in its dungeon it learned that the majority of dungeons expand downwards and then keep their core on the lowest floor. It also knew that the adventurer’s who had been raiding it suspected that its core might be on the island but didn’t know for sure. That meant that any new invaders looking to kill it were likely to waste strength while killing their way towards a dead end before coming after its real core.

Another reason was the valuables found underground. The invaders it wanted to kill the most were highly attracted to the gemstones and gold that could be found there. Of course they would have to be used sparingly as bait since they could not be replaced like its flowers, but the gem wouldn’t feel any loss when the invaders took them since it wouldn’t affect its mana regeneration

The other two benefits of expanding downwards were more minor, but still worth adding to its decision making process. The first was the infinite room there was to expand in. No matter how far down it dug there wasn’t going to be living beings it had to worry about expanding towards. The second reason was somewhat related in that it didn’t have to worry about anyone entering its territory from below. That meant that it could expand downward further than its conscious could monitor without adding any major risks.

All of that was enough to make expanding downwards the correct choice, but before work began the gem sensed that Mav had successfully placed the assistant in the canopy. It focused there and then watched the assistant dash around bringing gusts of wind with it. After letting the assistant explore and get settled for a while the gem started a conversation with the assistant.

“So what do you think? Is it windy enough for you?”

The assistant stopped dancing in the wind. “I would prefer it if it was even windier, but this much is still good.”

After thinking for a second the gem responded “If you do well then I will make this area even windier once I get some more wind attributed magic cores. For now I want to know if you will be able to watch over this entire area. Will that be any problem?”

The assistant resumed its dashing around. Going all the way to the furthest corners of its influence. “What is this entire area? I can certainly watch over all the canopy and vine pathways, but the forest floor will be difficult for me to manage.”

The gem felt like letting its leaves droop. “That’s not perfect but it still frees up enough space for me to expand. I’m going to go get to work. If you run into any problems contact me.”

The small windy figure nodded and danced away on the wind freeing the gem to focus and get to work. It had an expansion to and more assistants to make. Preferably before the invaders started trying to raid it again.