Finding an unpopular dungeon wasn't that hard. The dungeon in question was known for having entire sections under water, meaning only aquatic races were interested in it, and even then, it was dark and the creatures inside liked to create ambushes, so they weren't too hot on it either. The dungeon had been on the edge of being demolished for the last few months, so even if they broke it, no one would care. Not that they wouldn't have to pay the fine, obviously. Even if the dungeon was unpopular, money was money, and the government would use any excuse they could to take it.

For Andrew, the dungeon actually wasn't all that bad, at least, not after the first kill. He already had his dark vision, so once he picked up the ability to breathe underwater from the fishmen, which were the creatures populating the dungeon, the dungeon lost all difficulty for him. Quinn was still miserable though, since she had to depend on a magic item for her water breathing, and she didn't have a carapace to insulate her from the water.

"Please, please, let this destroy the dungeon." Quinn muttered as she wrung out her clothes at the end of the dungeon. "I don't care about the fine! This place is a crime against nature!"

"You know, you knew the dungeon was full of underwater sections." Andrew pointed out. "Why didn't you bring a swimsuit or something?"

"Because a swimsuit would be the worst thing to wear in a place where I could be ambushed by a dungeon creature at any moment, and there's no way I'm buying a wetsuit for one freaking dungeon." Quinn grumbled. "I can handle being a little wet, it's just annoying."

Andrew shrugged. "Fair enough." He waited for her to finish wringing out her clothes, before putting them and her armor back on. "Shall I get started?"

Quinn nodded. "Hopefully this works, or it's going to be a pain to figure something else out. Plus the pain of being forcefully ejected from an expanded space." Quinn grimaced. "Fuck it, if this doesn't work, I'm taking the next week off. I'm going to need it after all this crap."

Andrew grinned slightly at the grumpy woman, before focusing on the Living Dungeon trait and activating it. Immediately a menu appeared in front of him, and Andrew blinked. "Huh. Well, I have options, apparently." He muttered, glancing over the menu. It had a few options available. The first was terrain type, which had options like caves, forest, plains, city, and so on, and apparently he could select multiple at once, because when he selected city, caves didn't unselect. Actually somewhat interested in what a cave city would look like, Andrew left that as is, resisting the urge to select the underwater option as well before moving on.

The next option was terrain shape, which… Well, there were a lot of options there, because apparently he could shape the dungeon in literally any way he wanted. Gravity wasn't exactly a thing for dungeons, so the 'floor' was automatically down, which meant that even if he put two floors at right angles to each other, people would still be able to walk on both as if they were flat ground. Not wanting to get too complicated with his first dungeon, Andrew just kept things as a simple rectangle, which led to the dimensions option, which was essentially just how much of the area he had available to him he wanted to actually use. He didn't have to go for the full thirty-five kilometers squared, thirty-five meters high. He could set them both as low as one, though that would be a bit cramped.

"How big do you think I should make the dungeon? I can go up to thirty-five kilometers squared." Andrew turned to ask Quinn.

"Do you want to be in there all week?!?" Quinn sputtered. "No, five kilometers, max! Less if you can."

"So, would one work?" Andrew offered. "That wouldn't be too small, would it?"

Quinn blinked. "No? That's- how many creatures would you be making?"

"Forty-one to eighty-two." Andrew replied.

"Then yeah, that should be fine." Quinn nodded, though she still looked uncertain.

Andrew nodded, taking the area down all the way, while leaving the vertical at max, before moving on to the next option, which was traps. He blinked at it for a moment, before making sure the option was completely disabled before moving on again. The next option was exactly what he'd been hoping for: creature types. He could choose which Essences were used in the dungeon! Which meant he could actually use the dungeon without worrying he'd accidentally make a sapient being he'd have to kill! Andrew's relief was palpable as he selected rats as the creature type. He then had to choose the average group size, as well as… behavior?

Andrew frowned as he focused on the behavior option and he saw the options for aggressive, neutral, and peaceful. "Quinn? Are dungeon creatures ever peaceful?" He asked hesitantly.

"Never." Quinn replied. "Why?"

"Cause apparently I can make my dungeon creatures peaceful…" Andrew replied, feeling some sort of internal dilemma welling up. He was creating these creatures in order to kill them. And as long as they were creatures and not people, he was okay with that. However, if he could make them peaceful… then weren't they more like pets? Could he really kill his pets just to make himself stronger?

"Oh no, I know that look." Quinn frowned at him. "Drew, you can't think of dungeon creatures as real beings! They're constructs! They're born from nothing and they return to nothing! They don't actually exist!"

"Then why can you bind them?" Andrew retorted. "Why can I gain Essence from them?!? They may not exist in the same way you and I do, but they obviously have some sort of life to them!"

"They're created by the dungeon to kill anyone who enters it! They're mindless killing machines!" Quinn countered.

"Except they obviously don't have to be!" Andrew jabbed a finger at his menu. "They can be peaceful!"

"As controlled by you!" Quinn snapped. "That only makes it even more clear they're constructs! They simply follow orders! They can't think for themselves! They're controlled!"

Andrew paused. "I suppose that's a good point… but how much of that is control, and how much is just influence? Like, if I set a creature to peaceful, and you go up and stab it, if it's controlled, it'll just sit there, but if it's just influenced, it'll retaliate." He frowned. If he wanted to see what the creatures were really like, he'd probably have to set their behavior to neutral. But… Well, he already knew that, didn't he? The beasts in the forest pretty much attacked on sight. Plus, he didn't actually have many problems killing animals… it was just the thought of these creatures being his that was tripping him up. Killing a random crow? Fine, if there was a point to it. Killing Gregory? Never. But as much as he was creating these creatures, in a sense, they weren't actually his. "Okay, no, I've thought it through. We're good."

Quinn breathed out a sigh of relief. "Good, good. So, is it ready then?"

"Almost." Andrew nodded. He set the average group size to ten and the behavior to neutral, which only left the amount of creatures and the level left to decide. The amount of creatures was strange. It had a minimum value and a maximum value, based on his Will, but he could adjust both of them down to one. So anything below his Will, he could decide exactly how many creatures were spawned, but if he wanted to go over that, it'd be more random. He kinda wanted to make a dungeon with a single, peaceful creature in it at some point, but for now, he left both options at the max. He then set the level at one, since this was just a test and he didn't want to waste too much Energy, before confirming everything and the dungeon began to form.

He looked around for a moment, before nodding. "Seems like it worked."

"At least we haven't been violently ejected as the dungeon instance collapsed." Quinn agreed. "Let's hope the inside is stable too."

"How do we check?" Andrew asked.

"How do you think?" Quinn raised an eyebrow at him, before gesturing for him to enter. "Go on in."

Andrew frowned. "This seems less than safe."

"Oh, you'll be fine." Quinn waved her hand dismissively. "A spatial collapse never hurt anyone." She paused. "Well, no, it hurts, but it won't kill you." Andrew frowned at her and she rolled her eyes. "Just go! You'll be fine!"

Andrew eyed the dungeon skeptically, before letting out a groan, shutting his eyes tight and stepping through, flinching in a nervous anticipation of pain, and… nothing. Andrew peaked an eye open before relaxing as he looked around at… cement tunnels. "Well, that would be city caves…" Andrew muttered. Not exactly what he'd been thinking, but it made sense. He'd been hoping for more of an underground city kinda thing, but that was probably a little ridiculous. Who would build a city underground?

"What is this?" Quinn asked, looking around as she stepped in after him.

"This is apparently what you get when you combine the city terrain with the caves terrain." Andrew explained, before pausing. "Huh… if I'd added underwater, would we be in sewers? That'd be oddly appropriate for rats."

Quinn grimaced. "I don't care how appropriate it is, if you make a sewer dungeon, you're on your own."

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"Yeah, that would be disgusting." Andrew agreed with a grimace of his own, but it got him thinking about the other combinations he could make. Some seemed obvious, like forest city would probably just be a city made out of trees, while others seemed more complex, like underwater forest… maybe something like a seaweed forest? Maybe coral? That might be cool. Andrew continued to consider more combinations as the two of them began to explore the dungeon.

"Oh, hey, it has rooms!" Quinn exclaimed as they came upon a door. "That's a good sign. We could find technology here."

"Technology?" Andrew asked as she entered the room, revealing what looked like a kitchen.

"You know, phones, computers, stuff like that." Quinn explained as she began searching through the drawers and cabinets. "Usually it's all stuff we already have, but occasionally you'll find something slightly more advanced, or some interesting combination that we haven't tried yet. Like microwaves. We had radiation, we had ovens, but we never thought to put them together until someone brought one out of a dungeon. Of course, other times you get things like this." She held up a combination of a knife, spoon, and fork that just looked wrong. "It's one of those probability things. Dungeons churn out a lot of crap, and eventually some of it is bound to be useful. Dungeons like this create more crap, so they're more likely to make something useful." She shrugged as she continued her search.

Nothing in the kitchen turned out to be valuable, so they moved on, searching every room they came across as they did. Eventually they ran into some rats, but the beasts weren't a challenge at level five, let alone level one, so they barely even registered. That is, until they killed their last rat and a prompt appeared in front of Andrew.

[Dungeon cleared! Exit portal available.]

Andrew blinked as he felt he could open a portal out of the dungeon at any time now. "Huh… apparently that was the last of the rats, so we can leave whenever." Andrew told Quinn.

"Oh good. Then we just have to find the dungeon core." Quinn nodded.

"No, I mean, I can get us out of here whenever. I can open the exit portal myself." Andrew explained.

Quinn paused. "Oh… well, that's convenient, but we should still find the dungeon core."

Andrew frowned. "Would my dungeons even have a dungeon core? I mean, isn't the dungeon core like the control center for the dungeon? If I'm the one controlling it… wouldn't that make me the dungeon core?"

Quinn hesitated. "I- don't think so? Yes, the dungeon core is what holds everything together, but… well, it's what holds everything together! Even if you're the one who made it, the dungeon should still need a core to stabilize it… I think. Probably."

Andrew gave her a skeptical look, but he didn't know enough to say she was wrong, so they continued their exploration. Then, once they finally reached the end, they found… "That doesn't look like a dungeon core." Andrew commented as he stared at what looked like the dungeon entrance, but in the wrong spot.

"No it doesn't." Quinn muttered, frowning at the portal, then at Andrew, before shaking her head. "I suppose you are the dungeon core then… weird, but I guess that makes sense. Maybe cores aren't as important for dungeon stability as we thought?" She trailed off, getting lost in thought for a moment before sighing. "Anyway, I'll say this has definitely been a successful experiment! You can make custom dungeons, inside another dungeon, safely! The only issue is that we'll need to clear both dungeons, but level fives don't take that long to clear. Though I suggest we find a less annoying dungeon to use next time."

"It wasn't that bad." Andrew commented. "It's kinda fun to swim around every now and then."

Quinn gave him a flat, unamused look. "No." She stated simply, before clapping her hands. "Now, let's get home and get some food!"

*

Quinn ordered some take out which they picked up on the way, both of them immediately digging in as soon as they got home. Despite how little had actually happened, it'd been a long day. Dungeons were anything but small, and it took a while to make your way through them. The second one probably would have been shorter, but they'd stopped to search every room, so it'd ended up about the same. Quinn collapsed on the couch in a food coma as soon as they finished, while Andrew just flexed his aura and focused on his status. He still had forty-five attribute points to spend.

He'd been saving them until he made sure Living Dungeon was a direction he wanted to pursue, because if he was going to make use of the trait, he was going to need a lot of Energy. He could only make a level five dungeon at the moment, and if he did, it'd almost completely wipe him out. If he wanted to level up any time soon, he was going to need to pump those numbers up. So the first thing he did was sink twenty points into Energy, bringing his total up to seventy-five. Then he used the rest of his points to make his mental and physical stats forty-five, leaving him with two extra points, one of which he put into Sensitivity to make it an even four sixty, before grimacing as he realized he only had one more point to spend, which would make one of his stats uneven. Debating whether to save it or not, he eventually sighed and put it into Energy, because why not. Of course, all this would be thrown off the moment he leveled up his Class again, but for now, his status looked (almost) pretty, so he was happy.

Andrew paused to consider his next step. With his rank increase, leveling was going to be a pipedream until he increased his Class level, so that had to be his immediate focus. According to the guide, Essence Master wouldn't be too hard to level, but in order to make that happen, he needed to get level up and get an Essence Master skill. Which meant he needed to hit the gym and start training again. He should also practice with his affinities, because just having them didn't mean he knew how to use them. He'd experimented with a few lightning empowered kicks while in the dungeon, but it just wasn't the same as shooting lightning out of your hands.

Still, that meant Andrew was stuck training for the next year or so, because even if Essence skills were faster, he wasn't under any delusion that they'd be fast. In the meantime, he'd focus on experimenting with his dungeons with Quinn. Maybe if he managed to make a unique enough dungeon, he could even help with her streaming, which would make him feel better about essentially mooching off her all the time. And that was that. Skill training and dungeon testing for the next year or so. Why didn't that sound very exciting?

*

Beast Andrew paused as his thoughts followed a similar thread as his Changeling self. He and Li Jing were both growing steadily, but they still needed to be stronger before they could start venturing into the wilderness safely. Or at least as safe as they could. And since they couldn't increase how fast they grew until they could move deeper into the wilderness… that meant they had to wait. Of course, if he brought it up with his parents, they'd just tell him he was being impatient, that he was still young and he had all the time in the world to get stronger. Not that they'd be wrong, but Andrew wasn't particularly in the mood for the truth. He was young, immortal, and impatient, damn it!

"You're ridiculous." Cathryn snorted, flicking a pea at him.

"Why, what's he thinking about?" Li Jing asked.

"I'm wondering why, when we have all the food to choose from in the world, we chose to have peas for dinner." Andrew grumbled.

"I like peas." Li Jing frowned, playing with her pile.

"And that isn't what he was thinking about." Cathryn rolled her eyes. "He was being all mopey about how long it takes to get stronger, while being basically immortal. In two worlds, no less!"

"I am objectively immortal, thank you very much, and just because I have time doesn't mean I want to waste it!" Andrew protested.

"Is it really wasting time if you're doing everything you can?" Cathryn retorted, raising an eyebrow at him. "I think you're just bored."

"What's the difference?" Andrew replied.

"Exercise is boring, watching tv is wasting time." Li Jing provided.

"Is it really wasting time if it entertains me?" Andrew countered. "Is it really productive if I hate doing it?"

"Yes." Li Jing answered with a smirk.

Andrew scowled. "I don't like these rules."

Cathryn sighed. "Andrew, not everything in life has to be exciting. Some things just need to be done because they need to be done."

"I know, I know." Andrew grumbled. "It just always seems like there's too much to do, and not enough to make it worth it. We put all this time into getting stronger, just so we can keep doing the things that actually make us happy. It's the same thing with money for mortals. All this time and effort just for the few moments you can find to actually enjoy your life. Just- grinding, day in and day out… I don't know. I get that it's necessary, it just doesn't always seem worth it."

Cathryn frowned at him. "Andrew, my mother worked two full-time jobs just to put food on the table. She barely had time to sleep, let alone anything else. We visit a spa every other week. I don't think you can complain."

"But that's my point!" Andrew exclaimed. "All that work, for what? What does she get out of it? She can't even stop to appreciate the things she's struggling so hard to provide for!" He paused. "Though a lot of that was your dad's fault… man, fuck that asshole."

Cathryn shook her head. "So what are you suggesting? That people just stop?"

Andrew shook his head. "No, obviously not. People do things because they need to be done. A lot of the time at least. I'm just saying the system itself kinda sucks. A world where everyone has to constantly expend effort just to survive… ugh, I don't even know what I'm getting at anymore. I mean, the effort is necessary, I get that, but why is it necessary? And at a certain point, is the effort even worth it? Is survival worth putting yourself through all that? Don't get me wrong, I'm nowhere even close to that level, but if I was your mom… I'm not sure I could have done it."

"I think it's about taking on the burden of more than yourself." Cathryn replied quietly. "My mom… she did all that for the family, for me and my dad… even if she didn't get to be with us all that much, making sure we were provided for… that's what kept her going."

Andrew leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "Maybe it's not the system that sucks, but people. If your dad actually helped, then your mom could have put in less effort. How many people out there put the burden of their survival on someone else? Shit, do the Bonded do that? I mean, we're supposed to be these protectors and whatnot, but how many of us just sit around enjoying all the free shit provided for us? How many of us check out and stop putting in the effort, content to just coast?"

"More than a few." Li Jing frowned.

All three of them fell silent for a moment, before Andrew let out another long sigh. "Fuck it, we aren't solving all the world's problems over a dinner conversation. I'm not sure it's something we can ever solve. We just… have to make sure it's never us forcing other people to carry a heavier burden."

Li Jing nodded. "Agreed."

Cathryn smiled bitterly. "Way ahead of you."

Andrew sighed again. "Which means I should probably put more effort into training."

"No, relaxing is fine." Li Jing interjected. "Just make sure what needs to be done is done. Pushing yourself to your limits just makes it harder to keep going."

Andrew froze. "Well shit, now I don't know what to do."