I am surrounded by dirt and darkness, while my senses are different. WHERE THE FUCK AM I? Ok, ok, ok calm the fuck down, that's the only way out! So I seem to be underground but last I knew I was going to bed so either I was kidnapped or sent to some kinda fantasy world. As insane as it may sound, i feel that the second is likely, I can't feel any limbs and having read enough dungeon core novels, I get the feeling that my situation may be no different, especially with my strange sense of the surroundings: it is unlike taste, sight, hearing, touch or smell, but like every sense combined into one with some magic on top, creating some bizarre synaesthesia.
'System', I call in my mind and to some surprise despite slightly expecting it, it flitted into being:
Race: Dungeon core
Name: None
Titles: None
Level: 1 (100 mana needed for next level)
Mana: 52/100
Mana regeneration: 10 per day
Floors: 0/0
Skills: Expansion, absorption
Ok, I guess I should start planning what I'm going to do next. In a typical dungeon core novel, they usually go to the surface straight away or start there and then have to deal with hordes of adventurers trying to enslave or kill them. I don't want to gamble with my life so I think it's a good idea to develop my defences and gain some levels first even if it takes some time. I think mana regeneration will also be problematic so I should think of how to increase that: usually increasing size increases mana regeneration slightly, same with increasing my level, but if I remember correctly, things dying in the dungeon provide the most mana and a few dungeon novels I remember involved creating ecosystems to generate mana for them at a terrifying rate. As I can't level up or create monsters, I decided to expand first. The lack of available floors made me worried for a moment, but then again it likely wouldn’t affect my growth just yet if I was still able to expand, it was something to think about though.
After a short internal debate, I created a devious strategy for my dungeon, I can create interlocking and weaving tunnels only wide enough to crawl through and populate them with small monsters: this will also prevent intruders from taking too many supplies or weapons with them while allowing ambushes in the dark tunnels. In addition, I don't need any light to sense the tunnels and hopefully, it'll be the same for my first monsters that I eventually get.
It didn't take long to create 4 tunnels, each 100 metres long if they were straight, which they are obviously not. I had kept my status open the entire time and now my mana had all been spent:
Race: Dungeon core
Name: None
Titles: None
Level: 1 (100 mana needed for next level)
Mana: 0/100
Mana regeneration: 20 per day
Floors: 0/0
Skills: Expansion, absorption
As I dug, I had absorbed huge amounts of the dirt excavated which had provided some mana to help with digging but it wasn't enough to continue indefinitely. Assuming that my growth in mana regeneration was constant which it seemed to be, every 40 metres of tunnels would provide 1 additional mana per day. With 20 mana per day, I should be able to construct an additional 120 metres of tunnels a day as factoring in my regeneration, I had spent roughly 60 mana on the construction of tunnels so the additional 120 metres of tunnel should cost roughly 18 mana. Earning 20 mana per day, I can get to level 2 in 5 days where I can likely get monsters and see if building an ecosystem would get me more mana. if I instead built 120 metres of tunnels the next day, I would bring my mana regeneration to 23 with 2 mana left over. After 4 days and about 6 hours, I would then have enough mana for level 2. I decided to go for the second option as the extra tunnels and mana regeneration would be beneficial to me which more than compensates for the additional time required which may be even shorter than I estimated as my previous calculations assume that for the entirety of the first day I would have 20 mana regeneration which is definitely not true but it probably doesn't have a large effect or even matter- especially given the fact that pretty much all of the values are an approximation.
It took a lot of waiting, but strangely the mind-numbing boredom wasn't present, perhaps due to the fact that my brain structure has completely changed, with other changes being what feels like coldness and detachment from the world and an uncaring apathy towards life. For example, the potential 'intruders' that I plan to massacre and turn my tunnels red with will likely have families, loved ones, aspirations and powerful emotions yet I have little resistance in my mind to the ruthless slaughter of them. Perhaps after killing enough and providing little as recompense the flow of lives into my murder hole will stop as people decide to leave me alone in search of easier dungeons.
Setting the dark and disturbing thoughts aside, I realised that my tunnels were now complete and my mana regeneration was at 23. These new tunnels were woven between the previous ones like spider thread, small and unnoticeable but deadly if you don't spot them in time. They connect each tunnel as well as loop back on themselves occasionally while some have dead ends and others are planned to host deadly traps.
It didn't take long for me to start thinking about random ways to try to get more mana, not out of boredom but because sitting in silence without thoughts felt very uncomfortable as a sense of loneliness and isolation set in so it was good to have a few distractions to keep me from having an existential crisis. One idea I came up with was a potentially crazy idea: collapsing my dungeon. This idea consists of using an area with my influence and collapsing some support so that soil can flood in. Then, I would continually absorb the dirt and convert it into mana. Of course, I had no idea if it would work and either way there were many, many drawbacks. One being that people above might just start noticing when the ground collapses by metres, another being that the collapse may not be as easy to control as I think and my dungeon could just be flooded with a sea of soil and mud. In conclusion, wait...
Days passed by quickly as the dungeon sat in silent contemplation, having to resist completing a multitude of insane yet somewhat feasible ideas that it came up with.
Ochrium's POV:
Ochrium Drakenberg sat far more bored than a certain dungeon in the middle of his class on how to battle ancient dungeons. Sure, some of the dungeons sounded absolutely mind-bendingly complex and incredible: one would not kill adventurers but capture them and turn them into the dungeon’s army while another created literal cracks in dimensions and spewed out horrors and abominations twisted and warped into the most grotesque forms imaginable. But why was it necessary to learn how to fight them, the genius thought in silence: after all every ancient dungeon had been wiped off the map while their cores were repurposed into mana storages for the most powerful mages, one of which his family was in possession of. It was for this reason after all, that the second arcane empire was formed with the grand wizards wielding level 100 and above cores so that they had no need to invest stat points in mana capacity or regeneration, focusing on control and mana concentration instead.
Personally, Ochrium couldn’t wait until his father died and he could inherit the level 118 core and become a grand wizard but before that, he had to go to the royal academy to learn things he already mostly knew and would likely be useless in real life. Here, he was studying dungeon strategy, where he excelled beyond his peers and even some of the teachers but could learn nothing. While showing off and gaining attention was at first exhilarating, now it was little more than pointless ego-inflation in his opinion. Perhaps after this, he would launch campaign after campaign against the worthless level 10 dungeons with no uniqueness or difficulty, other than perhaps having to deal with the thousands of pissants that liked to refer to themselves as ‘adventurers’ while drowning in their hedonism.
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There were no worthy opponents left: the empire was too afraid of the fate of the first arcane empire to allow dungeons to even grow to level 50, the moment they surfaced they were looted and crushed by overwhelming strength as the tiny core was given to one of the slightly less incompetent adventurers.
Dungeon's POV
It took ages, and I mean ages to level up but now, I finally have enough mana thank fucking God, I think I now have a pretty good idea of why dungeons are so murderous, waiting that long would turn anyone insane.
Your level is now 2 - 1 Basic dungeon attribute unlocked - Dungeon shop unlocked - 100 Dungeon coins granted - 1 New floor available
I had an instinctive grasp of how I could access them.Somehow, I knew not how, but I could access each one as easily as breathing is, was.
Practically quivering with excitement, I then begin to view my various unlocks. First off, I look at the new dungeon attributes and hundreds flash before my eyes but only one really catches my eye: Monster breeding. It allows monsters to reproduce rapidly, or so it says. I immediately get it when I see it as this will likely be the cornerstone of my strategy.
Next, I look at the floor menu. It seems I create a floor and demarcate an area, which can be changed as I see fit as a part of that floor. Depending on what I put in my floor and use it for, a name and various effects are created which could be absolutely overpowered if it synergises well with what was placed there which is likely given how the effects are created. I designated my current tunnels a floor but nothing happened, it seems that I need to add more.
Last but definitely not least, the dungeon shop: I was overwhelmed by the information, there was an endless variety of things to purchase organised into various tabs: plants, animals, traps, utility, magic and miscellaneous. Chuckling slightly at the magic tab’s name, after all everything is magic, I opened it and was shocked by the sheer variety of spells and enchantments available. I mean, who needs a spell to heat slimes to 52°C exactly. Anyway, I take a look at the animals tab and it shocked me - no dragons, krakens or gryphons were there but man, who needs them when you can get war moles, fucking war moles. They are a little expensive at 60 coins but honestly, they seem just right for my floor. Apparently, the male moles are called boars and the females are sows, which is a mildly interesting piece of trivia. I consider what needs to be done to create an ecosystem around them and I create a quick list in my mind: I will likely need earthworms or some other insects as their food supply, which will also need their own food. There’s probably no need for decomposers as I can absorb everything but the producers in this food chain will likely need a way to create their own nutrition from… nothing? Or maybe mana but that would probably affect my own mana so I guess I should just take a look and pick some things out.
As I scroll through the list of various plants available, I see many options come up, the most viable of which I remembered for a comparison:
Blood moss (10 coins) - absorbs blood to rapidly grow and reproduce.
Corpse flowers(8 coins) - plants which absorb ambient mana and reproduce before rapidly rotting. They can better survive when growing in corpses, which is likely how they get their names.
Mana grass(5 coins) - absorbs ambient mana and slowly grows but contains a large amount of mana.
Dungeon shrooms(10 coins) - absorbs dungeon mana to grow and creates potent poisonous fumes with mild psychedelic properties surrounding it that can easily kill small animals.
These are the most interesting and are all quite cheap although something I find interesting is the distinction between ambient mana and dungeon mana. Does that mean that corpse flowers and mana grass won’t affect my own mana. From this, I think corpse flowers and blood moss are my favourite as they likely won’t affect my own mana and with what I’ve planned, shouldn’t have any problems growing.
I then check the animal section again and find an unassuming entry:
Gluttonous worms(15 coins) - worms that eat huge amounts of vegetation rapidly. They can eat living plants in addition to dead organic matter. They do not grow more than 30cm long like a typical earthworm but will instead have huge amounts of offspring over a short period of time. Can asexually reproduce.
Seeing this I buy the worms, the moles, and both corpse flowers and blood moss. Apparently, I also get 5 free plants and 5 free animals so I create 1 mole which would normally cost me 10 mana. It had long claws and a much bigger body than other moles but could still easily crawl through my tunnels. Other than that, it seemed no different from other moles. Next I give it some simple orders to see if telepathic communication works. It seems both excited at its home and runs around, chirping, as it checks out its new home. Soon, I callously order the boar to kill itself and it responds by brutally smashing its head against the tunnel wall repeatedly as I gained 2 mana without even absorbing it first. Instantly, I plant blood moss around the corpse to prevent too much waste and then plant one corpse flower on the cadaver. It was too easy, I killed what is practically my own little, innocent child by ordering it to dash its brains out on the hard walls. Yet I don’t have any compunctions about it.
I only half watched the flowers and moss grow from the corpse as I thought but before I knew it, a flower had sprouted on the mole and soon decayed as it crumbled before my eyes. Next, 10 flowers had grown on the mole while a red, thick moss now covered the ground and had started invading the mole. I used 2 mana to create 2 earthworms as using my free animal for that seemed extremely wasteful. They too rapidly grew and split until the corpse was covered in worms that were gorging on the plants. Next I created 4 moles, 1 male and 3 female to eat enough of the worms so that they wouldn’t overpopulate the area. I also ordered the worms to stop eating both the flowers and the moss.
Mole's POV:
After the best meal of the fattest worms any mole could ask for, we were ordered by the great creator to mate and we did. Soon I helped master extend his nice, cosy home by digging. It was slow and hard but it felt nice to help master and the best part was that I didn’t have to clean up the dirt - master just made it go away!
Dungeon's POV:
Ordering the moles to reproduce, I sent the male to help dig tunnels. He worked as hard as I could ask him to. While he worked, I extended my influence into the new space he had excavated up after absorbing the dirt left behind. It was so much easier to extend my influence into the air than it was to send my influence. I wondered though, where on earth did the air come from. When I absorbed the soil, there was never any air rushing in to fill the space as would be expected from completely removing matter. In addition, the pressure never dropped so perhaps I was converting some mana into air when I absorbed something.
Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for 13 little mole babies, or pups, to be born, only about 12 hours or so which seemed ridiculously fast but I guess that’s just magic land for you. It would probably only take a couple days for the babies to grow at this rate. The only problem would be securing food for so many pups.
Looking at my quaint little farm, the corpse flowers seemed to be thriving, they seemed to have reached a stable number of around 13 flowers on the corpse as they still grow, slower than before but still at a reasonable rate by absorbing the ambient mana before dying as new flowers take their space. It is quite beautiful, in a fucked up way as life turns into death, turning into new life as the circle of life is clearly displayed. In addition the worms eat the remains of the flowers and reproduce, forming new life from the decay of the flowers. None of the blood moss is either growing or being eaten as it had already absorbed the blood of the mole which now looked like a desiccated mummy. Seeing the healthy worm population, I ordered the moles to go there and let the pups eat the worms every now and again before ordering the male to reproduce once again prior to a small bit of experimentation - I wanted to see the effect of additional mana on an organism as I could sense mana flowing into the flowers from the surroundings, which was then transferred to the worms and finally sent to the moles but only in small amounts each time. What would happen if I gave them far more mana than they were receiving.
Pushing a small amount of mana into the boar, he decided to trickle the mana into his claws as this was very easy to observe the effects. It took a while and about 9 mana but they grew slightly larger and sharper over time. Now that I knew what it did, I wondered if these traits would be passed on through generations but since every mole was now pregnant, I couldn’t exactly do this.
I only realised that a single problem was now left. How would food be sourced for the new generation: I could only barely keep up with demand now and the pups had just been born. I needed a way to guarantee more food for my little moles. After a moment of contemplation, my gaze fell upon the male who was working hard at expanding my tunnels with absolute determination.
Race: Dungeon core
Name: None
Titles: None
Level: 2 (250 mana needed for next level)
Mana: 5/250
Mana regeneration: 24 per day
Floors: 1/1
Attributes: monster breeding
Skills: Expansion, absorption