A notification appeared before my eyes, and I remembered that I’d seen it before.

Congratulations! You’ve leveled up! You are now level 3!

Oh yeah… The level thing. What’s that about?

It seemed the thought itself was enough to prompt whatever it was that controlled the… prompts. Maybe it was my brain, maybe an ancient ocean deity. Perhaps even a magical system overlaid across the entire world, which I could perceive and interact with. Whatever it was, there wasn’t a sure way to know.

Your level is 3.

I see that. But it feels like there should be more. Show me a status.

Usually, they say that thing they say about assuming, but this time, my assumption made a status for me.

Name:

Vankaiser

Name_Error:

Terynium

Title:

Heir of the Ocean

Type_Error:

Zhaltan Pearl

Rank:

S

Quality_Error: Destroyed_Error

Species:

Leviathan

Species_Error:

Dungeon

Level:

3

Tier_Error:

4

Skills:

Consume, Rend

Skills_Error:

Create, Create Miracle

Power:

1

Progress_Error:

-300%

Size:

1

Area_Error:

0m³

Speed:

1

Blueprints_Error:

Coral (Variable), Kelp Tree, Trapa

Attribute Points:

3

Creatures_Error:

Spiked Eel, Dartfish, Cleaner Shrimp

What the heck is a miracle? Also… I have so many other questions…

Create Miracle

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

This ability can be used once per tier.

Create a random creature or structure at a designated area within your territory.

The created miracle will adjust location based on your current area restrictions. The created miracle can be anywhere within Rank C to S.

Sure… If I knew what that meant in relation to this world… Let’s just uh… View information about everything and get it over with? Info dump me.

Even though I could see I was rank S, I wanted to know more about the world around me, and how I compared to it. Was there a rank stronger than S? And did a level three rank S technically rate higher than a level 100 rank A? Again. No way to be sure for now. So I’d play it safe.

My mind was filled with information as I read through the prompts that followed. Some of my questions were left unanswered, such as where I’d obtained my name. But I could assume that the one named Terynium (hereafter referred to as Terry) that claimed to have created me, Vankaiser, had probably also been the one to name me. The species line was self-explanatory. I was a leviathan, apparently. But the errored one further to the right on my status left me wondering.

As a janitor, you can get a lot of downtime. You’re not supposed to, but you can. And if you’re a clever or ballsy worker--maybe even both--you carry your phone around with you for when you get the aforementioned downtime. You’re not supposed to, but you can. And if you happen to be carrying around your phone with you when you luckily perhaps stumble upon a period of time where you could convincingly make the argument that there’s nothing to do, then you just might be able to find something online to entertain you, like free books on some website. Again, you’re not supposed to but… you get the idea.

Anyway, the point is that I’ve read a lot of random stories online. And while I don’t usually contain myself to a single genre or plot point, the whole “dungeon core” archetype was familiar to me. I hadn’t read them before, but a lot of my online friends often discussed them. So I had a general understanding of what “Species: Dungeon” meant. However, the fact that Terry’s own status had somehow combined with my own now left me befuddled.

Was I now a dungeon?

Was I still a leviathan?

Or did I screw up whatever system or god existed in this world, and somehow gain a ton of abilities I shouldn’t have been able to access?

The last option seemed the most plausible.

So, after reviewing all the information, I came to the following conclusion: Level is a representation of the strength of my leviathan-half’s status, and tier is the same, but for the dungeon side.

Being Tier 4 already was nice, because I imagined that starting from the first would be impossibly boring. I had no idea how Terry had managed it, but I assumed the Area line had something to do with it. Still, the only things I’d been able to compare myself to so far were sharks, and I had no idea what ranks and levels they were. I would have to find out the hard way.

The rest of the prompts were a little bit more interesting, and I scrolled through each as they appeared.

Consume (Passive)

As you devour other lifeforms, you can absorb some of their power, growing stronger and even gaining some of their abilities.

Rend

Attack a vital point to kill your target faster.

Create

Create structures or life. This consumes mana, which is passively gained by absorbing the energy around your core.

Coral

A marine invertebrate that functions as a dungeon structure, you may direct the way it is built. Coral can be built with varying levels of toughness. The less mana infused into the coral, the softer and more colorful it is.

Kelp Tree

Create a large stalk of kelp, a type of algae that function as a dungeon structure. This structure excels at mana generation through photosynthesis.

Trapa

Famously known as the “water caltrop”, the Trapa has three serrated edges that can slice through the skin with ease. This creation serves as a dungeon trap.

Spiked Eel

An eel with sharp spikes across its body. It is wily and fast, and can compress its spikes to hide within spaces that might otherwise seem too small for it.

Dartfish

An ambush predator, the dartfish has a long pointed nose that contains a toxic substance deadly to many small fish.

Cleaner Shrimp

A shrimp that thrives in the mouths of predators, cleaning them and consuming the food it finds within.

So much information…

Now I could see why it had been so easy to tear Terry from his perch. He’d been surrounded by colorful coral, which, as the prompt indicated, meant he hadn’t infused much mana into it for strength.

Seems like the kind of thing Grant would do… favoring pretty colors over the SAFETY OF HIS FRIENDS OR HIMSELF.

Sorry. Got a bit upset there.

Otherwise, though, everything seemed great. In fact, it all fascinated me to my… core.

…

Is it too early for dungeon core jokes? Sorry.

Anyway, I was rather interested in what I saw, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to use any of it. The problem was that for the dungeon core Terry, he was probably born with the instincts, like how I was able to swim, and barely noticed my now horse-sized body if I didn’t focus on it. And since Consume was a passive ability, I really didn’t know how to use any of them.

Okay, after finishing with the current objective of finding another something to eat--because damn I’m hungry--step one is to figure out those abilities.

Yeah, I didn’t know why, but I was just starving. Constantly. It might have been related to the fact that, again, I was larger than my mother after her Thanksgiving feast, and could probably eat far more.

But still, hadn’t I just consumed like… five or six little sharks? What was the deal? My stomach felt like it was just completely empty! It rumbled again.

Ugh. Food first, then skills.