Chapter 1 - A new beginning

Day 1

After the blinding light faded and he came back to his senses, a blue box appeared before his eyes:

Name: Neo

Species: Dungeon core

Affinity: None

Rank: G-0

Level: 1

Structural Integrity: 1/1

Mana: 10/10 ( 1 for every m² at minimum 10)

Mana Regeneration: 100 /h *50000%*10000% = 1388 /s

Life Energy: 0

'For opening the skill menu at least 10 life energy are needed!'

"Neo" he murmured. Damn it even gave him the name he used for his first guild application form, maybe he shouldn't have watched Matrix so often before he died on earth. In the end it didn't really matter. Like all powerful people, he didn't use his real name in the last centuries. Knowing ones real name gave one power over a person. After reaching a certain level it was too dangerous since powerful people didn't lack enemies. As a dungeon core he would not use his name anyway.

At least he had no affinity. That would make learning all kinds of magic a lot easier, but falling back to G0 rank sucked.

He wondered about this status window. As a human he developed tests and experiments to determine values for his attributes so he could check his progress. Feeling his mana, he came to the conclusion that the scaling should be about the same he used in his experiments. Maybe the ability to analyze himself increased a lot since he became a dungeon core and he was now doing it subconscious or some higher entity gave new dungeon cores some training wheels. For now, it did not matter, he was glad he had this help.

Ten mana was laughable, even the most retarded country bumpkin would have a larger mana pool. On the other hand regenerating hundred mana per hour was pretty awesome for a G-0. The base regeneration seemed normal, but the modifier were looking ridiculous.

Mana regeneration modifier:

*50000 % from immortal level mana gathering technique

*10000 % from artifact grade mana gathering formation

At least one good notification. With this he could develop incredible fast. Progress that would take other dungeons years should take him only days. He decided to go to work, lamenting over his current situation and past mistakes would bring him nowhere and the only way the change something about it, was to go full speed straight ahead.

First he tried to get a feel for his new senses. After a few minutes he was able to feel the area about one meter in every direction, the close proximity of his core was feeling a bit different.

The feeling was in a much higher resolution. The rest of the area, felt not much different like seeing it with his eyes, but this was much more detailed. It almost felt like it was part of him. Just by this feeling he could tell, that this area was measuring exactly 5cm in a radius around his core and that the material of the formation was lapatronic crystal, a material he had to spend a fortune to get.

This should be his area of influence, his 'dungeon'. The way forward should be to expand it and form a real first level for his newborn dungeon. After experimenting for about an hour, he finally got a grip on it. By feeling his mana consumption, he was able to tell, that it was costing 10 mana to expand the dungeon for 1m².

"Poor normal dungeons." he murmured. It they would only have enough mana to expand for ten m² in one hour. Thinking of this, he expanded his dungeon over the whole top level of his tower. It was very slow at first, there was more to it than just the mana cost. For the next m² he needed almost 30 minutes, but he got faster after this and the last m² took him only two minutes .

Five hours later his dungeon had the proud size of 64 m² and his maximum mana increased with it to 64. While he was using his mana, he noticed that his regeneration was different. Normally he would just absorb his mana from the environment. After spending it, the mana went back where it came from. Nothing would get added or lost, but now he was pulling his mana from somewhere else. He concentrated on this connection and found out that he was pulling mana from the void. When he spend this mana, it would not go back to the void, instead it would increase the mana density in this room. This answered something he always wondered about: The mana density in and near dungeons was always way higher than elsewhere. After pondering over this issue, he decided that it had no consequences for him right now and he put thinking about this discovery on hold for now.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

While expanding his dungeon, he found his old body. It was still standing at the same position outside of the ritual formation. His senses told him that it was still alive and breathing. This was more than a little bit creepy. Every attempt to touch it with his mana was to no avail. The mana concentration in the body was much too strong for him to influence.

Frustrated he gave up after a while. It was the body of an immortal, it did not need food, hell it did not even need air. His old body would be fine for now. He let his senses stride over the rest of the room. The invaluable crystals and metals of the formation, were useless for him at the moment, but sensing the decorative plants he remembered something from his status window.

Life Energy: 0

Thinking about this, he tried to absorb one of the larger plants. At first it was not possible, but after he increased the amount of mana he applied, the plant died and he was able absorb it without problems.

After this he checked his status again and he saw a change.

Life Energy: 0.1

So he could only absorb dead material. That made sense, otherwise dungeons could just absorb any adventurer that entered it. This meant, that his old body, a potential, for a new dungeon, unimaginable source of life force, was useless for him at the moment. He had nowhere near enough mana to even make a dent in it, not to mention killing it. So it would just stand there, living on forever until somebody mighty enough destroyed it or he developed the power to kill and absorb it himself. On the other side, maybe that would be a good thing, perhaps he could even find a way to put his consciousness back into it.

With this out of the way, his thoughts came back to the plant. He now knew everything about it after he absorbed it. The count of its leaves, the age, the height and a lot more. After thinking about the fact that dungeons are able to create plants and creatures in them, he tried to create a living copy of the plant. It took him a while, but then he was finally able to create a living example of the plant and it only costed him one mana.

With an inner smile he directly killed it again and absorbed it. After that he checked his status.

Life Energy: 0.1

Frustrated he saw it was still the same. So there was no gaming the system and exchanging mana for life energy he realized. A little bit disappointed he killed off the rest of the plants in the room and absorbed them as well.

Life Energy: 2.3

After this, there was nothing left to do on this level of the tower, so he decided to expand his dungeon to the next lower level of his tower. When he touched the top of the stairwell down, a popup appeared in front of his inner eye. 

Expanding the dungeon to level 2 is currently not possible. Please unlock the next dungeon level in the skill menu.

He reopened his status menu and became instantly depressed when he saw the bottom line.

For opening the skill menu at least 10 life energy are needed!

When he was thinking about his situation he got a cold shill. Except for his old body, that was untouchable for him right now, there was no life left in this level of the tower. If he'd knewn before, he would've killed only some of the plants and let the rest regrow. It would've taken a long time, but it should've been possible to reach 10 life energy this way. In addition, before he was pulled into the dungeon core, he activated the full war mode of his tower. It was completely sealed from the outside and the entrance was guarded by four red duranium guardian golems that were strong enough to kill off an old dragon or a small group of SSS rank adventurers. They could only be shut down by his own mana signature and a code spoken with his voice. While it would probably be possible for him to replicate his human mana signature with enough time. He was a dungeon now and had no voice. The last time one of his former apprentices visited him was over 20 years ago. He was too obsessed with his goal to create a dungeon core, that he abandoned most of his social contacts in the last 100 years. But even if they tried to visit him, they would never be able to get past the golems. When he thought about it, the only one who would be able to reach him was another immortal, coming to kill him. And in that case the attacker would probably laugh his ass off if he reached his room and saw his idle body and a powerless baby dungeon core.

In the next few hours he became more and more desperate. At first he tried to dissolve the floor. One of the rooms on the floor under him was his bedroom and his core should be able to survive a fall from four meters to his bed. But the reinforcement of the floor was too strong. Even after pumping 1388 mana per second into it for an hour, he did not feel a notable change and he could feel his dungeon core slowly heating up. It would probably take him years to get through, if it was possible at all and his core would melt long before that.

After this he tried to move his core. It was possible. Slowly but steadily he was able to move to the stairs. When he was at the edge of the first step he paused and tat his status window.

Structural Integrity: 1/1

This was not good. It probably meant that even the smallest damage to the core would kill him . He thought about his chances and was only 50% sure if his core could survive the fall to the next step without damage. Even if he did not die immeditely, he had no idea how to repair a damaged dungeon core or if a dungeon core could be repaired at all. There were 15 steps to the next floor. It was not the time for such a Hail Mary, yet.

He let his senses drift over the room again, searching for ideas and possibilities when he suddenly noticed a mana disturbance, only a few meter away from him. Somebody was teleporting in! Right now he was completely defenseless.

This was impossible, his tower's defenses were on full alert. At least he should've gotten an alarm if somebody tried to teleport here, but he got nothing. This had to be a mage with a lot more experience and skill than himself, maybe even a godlike being. He thought about the situation and the one option that came to his mind was bluffing. As soon as the portal opened and he sensed the disturbance of a passage he projected a threat towards it.

"Who dares to enter the sanctuary of the Black Sorcerer? Give a good explanation, or else you will be annihilated!"

Immediately after projecting the threat, he sensed a small shape coming out of the portal. It was around 20cm height and it had wings. A fairy he thought and the small girl immediately started to cry.