It took me a while to process the reality of the situation. At first, I’d been half convinced this was a dream, but after sitting there for a few hours, that was getting less and less likely. If I were to place my time of death, I’d say it had been about 6 pm. Now it was 10 pm according to the clock on my basement counter, and as the hours went on, I found myself more and more unable to deny the reality of the situation.
Okay self! I will stay positive! I am not even a little bit depressed by being stuck in my basement, and I'm not even going to think about my... less than alive self over there at the bottom of the stairs. The fact that I was left to dry by that system thing that was annoyed at me by my very existence is trivial! Trivial I tell you!
Sufficiently pepped up by my impromptu motivational speech, I got to thinking about what exactly was going on! And definitely not about any of the slightly less than positive things that were currently vying for my attention!
First things first… let me think about my current situation… Actually, what is my current situation? I can look around at things. How does my vision even work in the first place? I think that system thing said something about me being a sentient crystal. Or maybe I'm just imagining that. I don't think I have any logs to prove otherwise, since that message disappeared a few hours ago. Oh well. Time to put that scientific method thing to work. I try adjusting my vision, and to my shock, I find myself looking around in a kind of third person view. I can do that? Neat. Actually, I think the scientific method had something about hypothesizing first... Oh well.
Back to reality, it turns out that my vision is very similar to the third person camera in a video game. I had been a few years since I'd touched a video game at this point due to my work life being so busy, but I felt kind of happy that I was figuring stuff out. Take that system! I'm going to beat this challenge you left me and figure out how to do stuff without your help! Experimenting with my vision I found that it was limited to moving around in what I estimated to be a five-meter spherical area. I could see outside of it with the clarity of normal vision but couldn't move my "camera" outside of the radius.
More importantly though, was what I found when looking at the center of the area. A glowing blue crystal floating on top of a black obsidian pedestal. The system had claimed I was a sentient crystal thing called a dungeon, but seeing it cemented into my mind that it had actually been telling me the truth. Well, that’s neat… I guess? Alright! Time to test everything I can think of with my new "camera". No secrets shall remain uncovered!
Several Hours later.....
Alright! After who knows how much time I spent trying out various ideas with my newfound third person camera, I’d discovered… NOTHING! Well, I guess nothing isn't exactly the right way to describe it. What I had discovered was all the things it couldn't do! I tried going through objects. Couldn’t do it. I tried moving objects, but apparently telekinesis wasn't in the cards. I tried zooming my vision in and out! Nope! The list goes on, but you get the idea. What time is it anyway?
Well… Looking at the clock I have down here, it's now about... 1 AM! It's getting kind of late I guess... but somehow, I don’t feel tired, so I guess sentient crystals don't need to sleep? Further investigation on that topic will probably have to wait then. For the meantime, I might as well check out my other senses. First things first! Sense of smell!
To my surprise, I do have a sense of smell that seems to follow around my third person camera. To my great relief I can switch it on and off. Not going to lie, I’d nearly forgotten that my less than alive self was sitting at the bottom of the stairs. Anyways! Moving on from that unpleasant experience! They say staying busy is a great way to not think about a stressful situation!
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Alright! How about hearing? After a brief test, it seems to work pretty alright, but at the same time I only hear insects chirping outside, so I’ll come back to this later! Sense of touch! Nope. Nothing. I can see that the camera isn't moving when it runs into an object, but that's about it. Taste? Same story. Honestly pretty okay with that since the only thing around is wood, concrete, glass and... me. Those would all taste awful. I try out a bunch of other stuff, but all of it turns out to be uneventful.
Well. Now what? Thinking about it, I guess the TV in here will kick on at 7 am to show me the news… but that's still 6 and a half hours away at this point. Hmm…
Well, logically thinking, dungeon cores have to be able to do something. Otherwise, they wouldn’t exist in the first place! At least I think they can do something. Why else would that system guy be putting them on Earth? Now the question is how to unlock what I can do? I think about it for a bit. What do people do to unlock their powers? Powers... Powers... Inner powers.... Oh! I got it! I returned my third person view to my crystal and began to meditate. People meditate to unlock powers in a few movies I've seen! This has got to work!
I sat there for an hour, willing my mind to be clear, willing it to be calm... Nothing. Okay. Maybe visualization is important? I've definitely seen movies where the protagonist has to accept themselves as what they are... I think... I spent the next hour imagining myself as the crystal. A glowy blue crystal sitting on an obsidian pillar... with an empty beer bottle on the table nearby...Nope! Focus on being the crystal self! Ignore the beer bottle! I envisioned myself as a crystal with power to do things. Meditating on thoughts of how I would do things. Crystal things! Dungeon things! And nothing again. Okay. Great. Just wasted another hour of my time, but this is fine. Just haven't figured it out quite yet.
I spent another hour meditating with no results and started to get a bit angry. Interestingly enough, my crystal changed colors to be slightly red. Great! I'm a mood crystal! That's just great! I am so calm right now! After another 30 minutes I'd calmed down enough that my crystal was back to being blue. Awesome. Maybe this is it? Maybe all I’m meant to do is sit here as an inanimate crystal staring at a wall for eternity...
No! I refuse to believe that! With all my mental energy, I began concentrating intensely on my meditation. Visualizing and thinking on inner power, karma, or whatever the hell might unlock new abilities for me. If it didn't work, I'd swap to another thing and kept trying! The hours passed by while I continued onwards, striving with all my effort to find something! I won't give up! No matter how complicated it might be for me to unlock my potential, I will continue onwards towards it!
Suddenly, my concentration was interrupted by the tv kicking on to show me the news. 7 AM already? With a grumble and thinking about how hard I'd been concentrating when I was so rudely interrupted, I decided to take a break to watch the news and get back to it once my tv turned off at 8 am. Sounds good to me.
“Good Saturday morning and welcome to today’s morning news! The weather today is going to be cloudy with a small chance of rain, so be sure to bring an umbrella with you for the weekend…”
Yeah, yeah… weather. Okay… someone got murdered… Something about a crime syndicate operating in the local area. There’s a recall of this type of car for a faulty brake line issue… unrest in this part of the world… great. So useful for my situation. Actually, I think one of my college friends had that car model? Oh well, they never kept in touch after college, so whatever. What's next?
“And now on a more positive note, a local author published a story today about a person who got reborn as a dungeon. The author has stated that all the profits collected will be going to a charity organization that gives meals to the homeless. As a quick summary of the premise, a person was reborn as a dungeon in another world where they have to use a menu to manage their dungeon and expand their abilities. This type of novel has gained widespread popularity in recent years.”
I sat there for a bit… I’m not angry. Definitely not upset that I spent the last several hours trying to gain abilities by meditation. You know what. That’s just a story. There’s probably no such thing as a menu. I’ll be back to meditation to unlock my true potential in a minute. OKAY! HERE WE GO. MENU!
MENU:
STATS
SKILLS
SKILL SHOP
Hmm…. odd. My core has suddenly turned bright red. And is that steam coming off of it? Neat. I have emotion based pyrokinesis.