I awoke from my eight hour nap to find the dungeon running perfectly and my mana reserves back to a comfortable level. I wish they were higher, I liked seeing the number in the millions. I’m sure I’ll get back to that level soon enough, especially if those pre-nap notifications are anything to go by.

I checked my status to find that yes, I was in fact level four. Likely due to the 20 level 30 adventurers that died in that raid. I mean all of the kills that had been happening had already put me halfway there, but the raid really pushed me over. I know that struggle is directly related to experience, growth through adversity and all that, but I didn’t think it applied to cores. I check with the system to figure out what’s going on and learn something that makes a lot of sense.

Dungeons are actively rewarded for being the source of struggle for others, that’s why they don’t like to simply overpower adventurers. The more the adventurer struggles and grows, the more they’re worth to the dungeon. That does explain why the most deaths happen in the last 5% of the dungeon regardless of dungeon size. I may not be a standard dungeon but I still gain experience the same way as them and have the same leveling system as them. I keep looking through my system notifications until I see the incredibly worrying one that says it's sending an administrator to reward me, so long as it's not Vaxstrom it should be fine . . . I hope.

I push thoughts of the annoying admin out of my head and resume checking over everything that happened during my self-enforced slumber. There hasn’t been much that has changed, other than I can tell that the adventurers went into a short panic after their precious raid party all respawned back at Wyla. I was pretty pissed off that they were just going to try and overwhelm my forces like that which is why afterwards I added a new rule limiting people to parties of 5 at maximum under penalty of a gray mark.

The adventurers had a short freak out after this where they all left the dungeon, except Ava’s Own cause they lived here. I’m not sure what happened outside but eventually groups started coming back in with a new level cap of 40. It seems the Guild is trying to test out what levels of adventurers I’ll allow, I’m not sure what they’re worried about as there is no system enforced level cap. Maybe there are special Guild rules or something?

Whatever all that matters is that with higher level adventurers comes higher leveled floors. I’m level 4 now which means another floor and more powerful monsters. I did a quick check over my second floor and updated all the level limits. Western zone has a level 20 cap and the Eastern zone a level 30 cap. Bosses are allowed to exceed their cap by 5 levels in order to provide adequate challenge. I planned for the South to be level capped at 40 and the north at 50 but until I’m level 6 and the dungeon cap is above that it doesn’t matter. As for the floors themselves the third floor will have a level cap of 30 and I plan on capping the fourth floor at 40. But there are several things I need to do before I’m ready to work on the fourth floor.

First I need to finish my level up. I have perks to spend and I need to decide on what will be best. For my lesser perk I simply stay the course, upgrading Enhanced Potency to level 5 for a total of 25% increased mana potency to everything I create. Now for my greater perk.

This one is a tougher decision as choosing what order I get all the affinities in is important. There are nine base affinities and I’ll have to be level 20 to have all of them. From what the system told me in order to use my ability to combine affinities into new ones I either have to sacrifice the affinities I combine or use a perk point. Which means I’ll need to be level 25 before I can even start combining anything. The order I get the base affinities matters because of the experience and mana regeneration bonus that people receive from matching my affinities. So far I’ve seen that elemental types are very common, I’ve seen some Wyld and light/dark types as well. Aether and Scourge have been nonexistent, perhaps they are especially rare affinities for humans?

It does make sense that living creatures would have trouble with what amounts to a death affinity and even comprehending space would be troublesome for a medieval society. . . wait, shit, did I accidently make my creatures the best aether magicians due to my incredibly barebones knowledge of theoretical physics? I have no way of knowing if my methods of using space and time magic are unique or even more potent than others without a reference point to go off of. Well nothing I can do about that until an aether mage steps into my dungeon.

Anyways, back to my greater perk. I think my best course of action is to get the elemental affinities then dark and light and then get scourge last. Now the question is which elemental affinity do I pick first? All of them are important and all of them can be used in different ways to synthesize new mana types.

Take Ice for example, it uses mostly water mana mixed with a hint of fire. It seems counterintuitive at first but then you have to realize what these elements stand for. Fire is the element of energy, both removing and adding it to a system falls under its element. Therefore if you want to state change anything you need a bit of fire mana to perform the energy transfer, but not so much that the fire mana starts directly energizing the system. As for the other three elements, well each of them relates to controlling certain states of matter. Earth controls solids, Water controls liquids, and Air controls gasses. If that’s the case why do you not need earth in Ice mana? Simple, you only need Earth if you plan on directly manipulating the structure of the ice. With just water and fire you can form the liquid water into the right form and then turn it into ice, removing the need to control it when it's ice. That being said, the best Ice mages I’ve seen have both water and earth with just a smidge of fire.

When it comes down to it I think that the best course of action for me would be to take Earth first. After all I am first and foremost a dungeon, an entity that is capable of creation magic beyond what mere mortals can comprehend. Earth would give me the most to work with in terms of dungeon object creation. Earth mana is found in almost all of the rare magical metals I’ve seen and it has properties that are desirable in armor and weapons. As far as dungeon creatures go, well, I’ve seen what elemental creatures can do. I have enough variants that I’ve absorbed that have elemental affinities for me to get a good grasp on what they can do.

If I was going specifically to boost my creatures fire would’ve been better, but on that logic why bother with an elemental affinity? If I just cared about making my creatures stronger than I would actually grab Scourge as death magic would likely be the strongest and undead creatures would likely kick ass. No, I wanted what was best for myself and the dungeon as a whole and Earth is just a solid first choice.

Greater Perk Selected: Earth Affinity

Gain access to Earth Affinity Mana and Earth Magic

10% increase in mana potency to all dungeon creatures and objects that use the Earth affinity

15% Increase in experience gained to all creatures with a matching affinity while inside your dungeon.

Ok that’s finished with. Now the second thing I need to do is-

“Are you awake now?” A voice directly next to me speaks out. I’m so completely taken by surprise that my mana lashes out and orders get sent to various dungeon creatures to come protect me. I manage to quickly backtrack my violent response as soon as I get a look at the tag of the person in front of me. My bad, people, there’s two of them. I manage not to freak out upon noticing the second one.

Executioner Crash

Executioner Texas

No Rank. No Level. That means one thing, System entities. Executioner Crash was the one to speak and I watch as he completely ignores my rampaging mana that seems to just avoid him, parting like the red sea. His silent companion also ignores the wild mana as it’s forcefully pushed away from him anytime it gets near.

“Sorry for surprising you, my partner thought it would be funnier” The southern drawl of the most stereotypical texan I’ve ever heard says “I’m Executioner Texas and this here is my current partner Executioner Crash. We’re in this dimension on a bit of cleanup duty and we were the closest ones to you when the system requested higher administration” Texas finishes, he had taken his cowboy hat off to introduce himself and put it back on afterwards. This man is the epitome of a cowboy; he’s wearing leather riding boots with spurs, he's got a pair of denim jeans, a flannel shirt with a leather vest, and of course the classic `ten-gallon` cowboy hat in a nice black color. The only thing that stands out is that he lacks any guns, which is strange but maybe he just doesn’t like keeping them out? Or he’s concealing them because they kill you just for looking at them or some equally crazy reason, all I know is that system entities are powerful.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“So you’re here to give me my reward?” I tentatively ask, trying not to anger the two people who could likely kill me.

“Oh, is that what the system called administration for? I guess it makes sense with you being a True Core, not much it can do to reward you with its local resources. I’m sure Texas and I could give you a proper reward, let me check the system logs.” Crash speaks up, his voice sounds very American but not definable to a specific region, he speaks like an excited teenager and it's honestly weirding me out. I’m not sure why they have voices that should be from Earth in origin, is it because I’m from Earth? I can’t be sure without more information, I have no idea how Vaxstrom’s real voice sounded because we talked directly with our souls.

I patiently wait for several minutes while Crash scans through local system logs and Texas simply wanders about my core room looking at walls every now and then, scratch that, he’s definitely looking through the walls. After a moment Crash looks up from the system logs while nodding his head.

“I see, I see, yes creating a new sentient race is certainly worth a reward. Normally the system would give you more mana or perks or levels but you could get all those things by simply continuing to grow.” I can feel myself agreeing with what Crash is saying. I don’t want any major jumps in power for free, I want to grow off of my own merits as a dungeon. “Hmm I can’t really think of much off the top of my head, is there anything you want as a reward?” Crash finishes and looks towards my core.

“Uhhh. . . can I have a minute?” I say lamely. I wasn’t expecting them to just let me pick anything! Crash smiles and nods his head before returning to looking over system logs. There was a lot on my plate right now and I now had to think of my own reward. I still hadn’t even gotten to looking into what it meant to have created a sentient race! Ok calm down, one thing at a time, there’s only so much you can do. Focus on the reward, you’ll have time for everything else later. I need something that I cannot get myself, something that only the system and its administrators can give me.

This would be easier if I even knew what an executioner was. All I know is that common sense tells me it's a scary title, these guys are clearly the system's assassins or hitmen or something. Ok calm, calm. Reward. Think of the reward. I could just ask for information, tell them I just want the system restrictions eased back. But that doesn’t seem like a good idea, odds are that stuff is restricted more for my safety than the systems. Ok something else then, I could directly ask for knowledge on a subject or maybe a promotion? How would that even work, I’m a True Core. Ugh, I can’t think of anything! Wait, that's it!

“I would like a favor in the future” I say with confidence before I can change my mind again. The two executioners look at me, then each other, they seem to have a silent conversion before Crash smiles and looks at me. “Done, a favor in the future. I’ll add an option into your system, just call whenever you want.” Crash says before motioning to Texas and both of them simply vanish from my aura. I’m not sure if they're still here or not, I wasn’t even able to detect any magic. Stupid administration, why is it always so stressful to deal with them. Whatever, it's a problem for the future. On the bright side I can now just call in some help if I ever need it, although I’m not sure what I would ever need help with. The important thing is that I can go back to focusing on my dungeon.

Since It’s already on my mind I decided to take a look at my Spiritkin to see if there had been any changes to their souls now that they are recognized as a sentient race by the system. The first thing I notice is that all of my contracts with the Spirits have been severed, it seems that they’re now recognized as proper dungeon creatures instead of hired help. The second thing I notice is that all of their souls seem comfortable(?) in their bodies, like they belong there instead of being unnatural constructs held together by my dungeon magic.

Looking over their statuses it seems that not too much has changed. All of them now have a special distinction within the hidden parts of the system marking them as sentients, other than that the only major change is that they now all generate their own mana. I think I would likely see more changes happening to them if I were to free them from being dungeon creatures, but I’m not doing that.

Unleashing a whole new race upon the world could have some serious problems that would backlash on the Spiritkin, something I don’t want to happen. No, I simply resolve myself to ensuring that my Spiritkin have a whole world within my dungeon to be satisfied with. I increase my existing plans for my future floors while simultaneously drawing out plans for my fourth floor. I also send streams of consciousness to check on my two newly evolved dungeon creatures.

Aika Aeternus POV

I had awoken from my ceremony a very different person. Even though I had slept through most of my evolution I still maintained a certain level of awareness within my own mind. I remember Lord Eternal himself granting me both a name and a title in addition to my new evolution. I still needed to familiarize myself with my new body before I could fulfill my duties as a protector. I first checked my own status tag for changes.

[The First Eternal Protector] Spiritkin Chosen (Mythical) Level 40

That was certainly a unique role upgrade. I would not let Lord Eternal nor my people down. I continued my self examination to find that I now had three tails instead of one and each tail was brimming with magical power. It seems that I had a tail for each of Lord Eternal’s Affinities, although Earth mana was a new addition.

I checked my system to learn that I had been asleep for over 8 hours, crap the ceremony! I finally gained awareness of my surroundings to find that I was back inside my room. I must’ve been moved here by Lord Eternal as no Spiritkin could enter the sacred rings unless it was for their blessing ceremony. I got up from bed and moved over to my large mirror to get a better look at myself.

I had grown a few inches and my tails were spaced differently to account for now having three of them. My figure was a bit more defined now, although that could just be my now extra tight clothes. I decided that I needed a change and simply willed a new copy of my battle gear into existence but larger. I paused as I was about to start changing, since when could I will things into existence.

I stopped what I was doing and sat down to meditate, entering my mindspace to check for changes. I found that the small needle wide tunnel that used to be my connection with Lord Eternal was now a massive gaping hole in my mind. The connection was big enough that I could physically perceive the Lord’s core without even going down the connection. I could also tell that this connection was two way and would allow me to draw upon Lord Eternals power at will, an ability I planned to use carefully lest I lose my Lord's trust.

I spent another half an hour examining my newly reinforced connection with Lord Eternal as well as the rest of my mindspace. Once I was satisfied with what I had learned I returned to my waking state and finished changing into my new gear. I had to make allowance for the extra tails as well as my extra curves, I had definitely grown. It wasn’t by much, it was as if my body had simply been forced into its proper adult form by the evolution, something that was likely only a few more months away anyways. At least now I could get used to one large change in my body instead of a dozen smaller ones, not sure if that’s actually better or not though.

Done changing and inspecting my new form I got up and walked towards the door of my room. I stepped outside and immediately moved downstairs to where I could sense my mother’s presence. As I stepped into the main room I hear several gasps, I already knew that there were more people here. My mother and father are sitting in a large chair holding each other, my friends Kumi and Hiro are also here, and the final guests are surprisingly the mayor and the guard captain. As I finish entering the room everyone gets up and bows to me causing me to get slightly flustered.

“No need to bow” despite my internal emotions my voice comes out clear and authoritarian. I almost don’t recognize it as my voice for a second, its pitch is identical to my own, it's simply the confidence and tone that makes it seem so different. As I start to freak out about my voice I notice everything slows down around me until it comes to a stop.

“Calm down my Chosen. I have accelerated your time perception, take this moment to collect yourself. You must be able to present a strong front for your people, they will see you as a leader, as an icon and representative of myself. Take your time and use my knowledge as you need it, I am well versed in many ways of speaking. Know that I am with you.” The voice of Lord Eternal speaks into my mind, I find it reassuring and it helps to calm me down.

I need to be strong from now on, this is the path I chose for myself and there’s no going back. I use the extra time Lord Eternal has given me to sift through both his and my own memories doing my best to steady myself. There’s no need for me to completely change my personality, I just need to remove the signs of anxiety and awkwardness in my speech patterns and body language. Easy right? Yeah this might take awhile.

“Thank you Lord Eternal, for everything” I send down our connection while I get to work within the realm of my own mind.

Bellator Aeternus POV

I gaze out at my expansive territory, the lands that I was given as a boss of the second floor. I can feel the change within myself. I am no longer a mere boss monster, but a chosen of the Lord, an elevated being who shall stand by his side. I glance once more at my new status tag with a smile.

[The First Eternal Warrior] Bellator Aeternus (Mythical) Level 40

I had truly reached the peak. I was now a unique existence, my very name taking the place of my race. I am the progenitor of the Eternal Prowler and have reached the apex of my evolution. My growth is now directly tied to Lord Eternal’s each affinity he gains, so shall I. Each level he gains, so shall I. I will be the strongest of his warriors, the fang upon which his enemies fall. The Claw upon which his foes shall break.

I feel the power of the Lord flow through me as he awakens from his slumber. I notice another tail begins to grow upon my form as the Lord gains yet another affinity. Earth, interesting, I shall learn to use it well. I move towards the Borderlands. The mountains there would be perfect for practicing the earth affinity. I shall continue to get stronger, for I am Bellator Aeternus and I am Eternal.