I had it all planned out. First I needed some more specimens and while I could copy anything that walked into my dungeon aura I still needed to get things into that aura. Also it would be better if I could directly absorb things to gain their blueprints as opposed to looking at them and trying to eyeball it from what I could see. It turned out fine for the prowlers, but a cat isn’t all that complicated when compared to some of the magical creatures I’ve seen pass through my aura in the forest outside. There was this one group of massive 12 foot tall gorillas that had fiery red lines covering their bodies like tattoos, their tags said Inferno Ape (Lesser) and their levels ranged from 8-12.

I decided that I needed to boost my own creatures first and then I would send them out to retrieve more specimens of the surrounding wildlife. First I simply pumped my current 4 prowlers full of mana to speed level them, however I hit a block when they reached level 10 for some reason. Uhh system a little help here? I felt the knowledge open up inside my head (well I didn’t have a head but still figure of speech). According to the system I wasn’t able to have any dungeon creatures or objects that had a higher level than 10 times my own level, this meant that the only way to get stronger creatures was to create evolved versions that were a higher quality level. It now made sense to me why quality was so important, a Mythical level creature would not only be able to beat anything the same level as it, but it would also be able to fight up several levels. I wanted to immediately make a mythical class creature, but decided to hold off. I wanted to work my way up to it and make sure my first mythical rank was special.

Since they were already maxed out I sent the 4 Level 10 Lesser Prowlers to go into the outside world and bring me back anything they could find, kill, and carry. I made sure to keep them updated on what I already had so that they would only grab new things. With that done I focused on trying to create a stronger creature to combat some of the beasts in the woods outside my domain. I focused on the prowler blueprint I had and tried to think of how to make it better. I remember making a custom monster in one of my games that was a cat-like creature with green fur that could control plants to create armor and weapons for itself. Focusing on that idea I began to manifest some Wyld Mana and focused on my end goal of a Prowler variant that could control plants. I felt the mana begin to steadily drain from my core until over 1,000 mana left me and began to form into a creature.

Four legs with paws and sharp retractable claws, A long body covered in powerful muscle, a strong pair of jaws with four pronounced fangs for puncturing flesh, forward facing eyes with the classic yellow coloration, and shimmering fur that could change itself to any shade of green to match the flora around it. I checked its tag to see what I had created Vinepaw (Greater) Level 10. I looked closer to see if I could check its full status (something I really should’ve tried to do sooner) lucky I was able to see it since it was my creature. The Vinepaw had a much larger status than I did, but I made sense considering that it had stats, abilities, and skills whereas I just had my mana and my perks.

I was happy to see that my Vinepaw had an ability that let it both grow and control vines as well as the power to adapt the color of their coat to blend in with surrounding flora (something I could already see from its appearance but it was good to see it on the screen). I checked the rest of my creatures and it looked like all the Lesser Prowlers as well as the Vinepaw had an ability that let them channel mana into their claws/jaws for extra damage and one that let them channel it into their fur to blend in with their surroundings. The Vinepaw had a variant of the coat changing one that limited it to plants, but made the effect more powerful.

After finishing the Vinepaw I sent her out into the world with orders to find and collect the creatures that were too strong for the Lesser Prowlers. With that done it was time to get started on my first floor. I decided to make one floor per level I had so that way I could gradually increase the level of the floors making it an optimal leveling area for everyone. I also wanted to make sure to implement a way to skip floors you didn’t need so that higher level people could go straight to the area they needed to level in without killing everything in the lower level areas. With that in mind I started by getting a sense of the layout I was currently working with. There was my core room which had a single 100 foot long tunnel that ended at the cave which then led outside, not great for a dungeon.

First things first I began digging, turning the tunnel into a room roughly a half a mile long, a quarter of a mile wide and about 500 feet at its highest point. I made sure the room was made like an oval shaped dome so that I could create the illusion of truly being outdoors. It was here that I ran into my first problem, my Dungeon Aura wasn’t big enough. System? Ok so the system gave me a rough tutorial of how to use mana to increase my dungeon aura. I had to concentrate and channel the mana through my core and into the edges of my aura and then push on all the sides equally. It took a lot of mana, the system helpfully informed me that most dungeons spend 80% of their mana on expanding their auras, especially higher tier ones, since a higher tier dungeon has more control within their aura it takes them more mana to expand it.

After expanding my aura for what felt like hours I finally managed to train myself to just do it automatically and dedicated half of my mana generation to aura expansion. Speaking of hours, “System can I get a clock function and a visual of my To-Do list?” I felt the system acknowledge me as a clock appeared as well as a separate tab in my menu for making notes. Perfect, it was so useful being able to mold my system like this. I found that I had been working on my aura for about 4 hours and noticed that during that time I had automatically absorbed several different things brought to me by my dungeon creatures. That’s a mouthful, I’ll call them mobs for simplicity sake, system you call them mobs too please. I didn’t feel the system acknowledgement this time but I didn't mind all that much.

Now that I could see my whole dungeon again, time to continue building! I removed about 50 feet of stone from the floor and replaced it with dirt. I wanted to give plenty of soil for oversized flora to grow into. I also needed some light for the plants to grow, I mean I could probably get them to grow with just mana, but light was essential for the magical forest I wanted to make. In fact a whole day/night system would be perfect. I looked through the perks for ideas before finding one in the Superior list that fit my needs.

Superior Perk: Star and Moon

Allows the dungeon core to create a functioning day/night cycle on any floor whose size is large enough.

While I wanted to eventually be able to make things on my own I was still new to the whole creating things out of mana. So I decided to get some system help so that I could continue building my floor while learning how to control my mana at the same time. First the system instructed me on how to make a sphere of rotating mana by compressing several spinning rings onto a core of liquid mana, this would be my sun. The moon was made out of some mana imbued rock that just made it a purple blue color. According to the system that color was normal for this world due to what the moon of this planet is made out of and magic. Fine by me the color of the moon looked cool and felt more magical than a plain white moon would. With that done the system guided me as I created a simple dungeon rule to sustain the day/night cycle.

Dungeon rules were essentially permanent spells that the mana from the dungeon could indefinitely sustain. It took some mana to maintain, but I was generating so much that it hardly mattered. With that done I added an extra effect to replicate the night sky as well as the blue and white of the day sky and I was done. I now had a really big room that looked like a huge dirt field. Time for some plants!

First things first I made sure to fill the soil with all the microfauna needed to sustain a healthy forest floor then I began planting using my mana to instantly grow plants to the size I wanted. I filled out the space with trees, bushes, vines, flowers, grasses, any plant I could find outside or could easily recreate with my knowledge. I also made sure to add fungi as well just to cover all my bases. I made it so that most of the area excluding the entrance and end were filled with trees making the whole area a huge forest. Then I added several clearings to allow some lower plants to grow and give a space where grazers would come to eat.

I realized I needed water so I made a Rock feature that looked like a mountain on the opposite side of the entrance and created a waterfall that fed into several small streams and brooks that would wind through the floor until ending in a large pond just to the left of the entrance. I made sure there was a cave in my mountain feature that led to my core room. Although as a True core I didn’t have to follow the normal rules . . . I quickly sealed off my core room from the outside before sliding it back and creating a fake core room connected to the cave. I made a fake core that looked like a vibrant green gem (I was still clear but I assumed normal cores would be the color of their mana). Now with my fake core set up I continued to build my first floor.

I wanted to have a central feature that would function as both the respawn point for my Mythical Trait and the place where the next floor was accessed. My idea was to create tokens that would allow anyone who beat the boss to access the next floor and by making the access point in a central location it would allow people to skip bosses they already beat and on later floors would allow them to explore in all directions instead of just one.

With this in mind I created a large clearing in the center of the ovular dome and made a huge tree in it empowering it with as much mana as I could until its branches were less than 100 feet away from the ceiling. My new tree was huge, it was over 400 feet tall and around 60 feet around at the base of its trunk. I checked the tree and realized I might have gone overboard. World Tree Sapling (Legendary) Level 10. Uh whoops, so much for not skipping quality levels. I checked my mana to see that around 120,000 of it was missing. Well at least I’ve learned something, it seems like the baseline for each quality level goes by powers of 10, it took 100 for a lesser, 1,000 for a greater, and 100,000 for a legendary. If I’m correct on this then I’ll need a lot more mana if I ever want to make a mythical class creature.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Well nothing I can do about it now, besides I don’t regret it I quite like my new baby world tree. I think in the future I’ll grow it through all my floors and make it a centerpiece of the whole dungeon. Hopefully it’ll become mythic when it grows into an adult, however long that takes. Regardless, with my new centerpiece created I create stone tiles and wooden benches making a sort of plaza around it. Then I create a plaque with some writing, mostly flavor text for my new tree and some instructions for how to receive the tokens I plan on making that will help me register every adventurer.

With that complete I also create 3 winding dirt paths leading from the central plaza to the mountain feature and 2 that lead from the plaza to the entrance. The dirt paths are going to be dangerous ones that wind through the woods in a circuitous manner. I then create a single straight stone path that leads straight from the entrance to the central plaza. This will be a safe path that anyone who respawns can use to go back to the entrance and leave. I make sure to place a low wall and lights on both sides of the stone path (I also remember to add light posts to the central plaza as well). I then create my second dungeon rule that will encompass the whole dungeon, these special stone tiled areas will be safe zones that mobs cannot enter unless they are provoked from the inside (can’t have people abusing the safe zone after all).

With all that done it's time to start populating the dungeon with some fauna. My prowlers have tirelessly worked to bring back a sample of every living creature within 10 miles of my dungeon entrance. They inform me through the bond that none of them have been able to find anything new in 2 hours, so I recall them all back to the dungeon. Since they’ve all done so much work for me they can be my first inhabitants of the first floor.

I let the four lesser prowlers inhabit the mountain feature, but I’m not sure what to do with the vinepaw. She’s a greater creature and would make a great boss, but I’m worried that most level 10 adventurers won’t stand a chance and get killed by her. While no one will permanently die in my dungeon I still want to make things fair for people. I decide to keep her as an extra boss that will be optional and instead I’ll make the pack of 4 the boss for this floor. I hollow out a den into World Tree Sapling, who I will now name Wyla, and let the vinepaw move into it. While I’m at it I also decide to place my core room beneath Wyla, moving both the fake and real core room.

Done with that I now need to make some new mobs. First I create a sizable starter population of all the basic mundane creatures whose templates I have. I fill the first floor with rabbits, birds, deer, mice, foxes, racoons, fish, and all sorts of other woodland critters both large and small. No bears sadly because the only ones I could find were a lesser variant called Earthen Ursa (Lesser) I also have several lesser variants of different boar species and that one ape species I saw earlier. For now I don’t use them since I want the first floor to only have one major predator that will serve as the main mobs for this floor.

Prowlers. I make a ton of them. First I make the mundane variant for the first half of the floor then lesser variants for the second half of the floor. I make sure to empower my 4 original lesser prowlers to turn them into the boss. One of them becomes a Maned Prowler (Lesser) which acts like a leader who buffs the whole pride, he’s also about 40% stronger than the normal lesser variant.

I make sure to slowly ramp up the difficulty as one progresses through the floor. First a group will encounter lone prowlers with level ranges from 1-3, then pairs of 2 that are leveled 3-6, next groups of 3 with level ranges 7-10. I make sure that there's no more than 1 level 10 in each group. Next one would reach the main plaza which is the center of the floor and also marks the halfway point. After that the pattern repeats the first half but with lesser prowlers instead. Finally one reaches the boss who will drop the token for the next floor. I make sure to create these layers of progressive difficulty as a dungeon rule for my mobs. Since I know that mobs can gain levels I decide that if they manage to level up they can progress to the next difficulty zone, I even add a way for them to challenge for the right to be the boss of the floor. With that done I make sure to add a base line number of mobs of each level group and set the dungeon to refill those numbers at midnight. I make hidden alcoves in the walls of the floor where the mobs can respawn and then move into the floor. I also add respawns for the normal critters, but only if their populations fall too low.

With my mobs and ecosystem all set up I’m almost ready for some adventurers. The final thing I need is some loot to reward people and the tokens which let them progress. For the tokens I create a special dungeon item that every person who touches the plaque in front of Wyla will receive, this token will keep track of their progress and will be useful for adding other features later. I make the token a simple wooden charm on a necklace that is automatically generated from Wyla’s branches and empowered by my dungeon magic. (I did have to get another walk through from the system but I'm getting better at mana manipulation).

Dungeons are the only ones that are able to make soul bound items that are unique to people as well as able to interact with their systems. As a True dungeon my ability to create these items is even better, so I’m confident that my dungeon tokens can’t be destroyed or tampered with. System even walked me through how to make failsafes, it wanted me to make one that would kill anyone attempting tampering, but I made it a simple self destruct system that also marks the person doing the tampering so I can identify them later.

With that finished I need to make some loot. First things first, magical forests should have magical plants that attract herbalists and alchemists. I try empowering different things with both neutral and life mana. It's a really grindy process, but being able to see what’s happening to the structure with my dungeon aura is really fascinating and informative as well. I experiment for 6 hours until I get a few specimens I’m happy with.

Lifeshroom (Lesser)

A mushroom empowered with Wyld Mana that has given the fungi healing properties. Best used by alchemists in healing potions.

Lifefern (Lesser)

A fern empowered with Wyld Mana that has given the plant restorative properties. Best used by cosmetic specialists to create ointments and cream that rejuvenate the skin and hair.

Ancient Oak (Lesser)

An oak tree empowered with Wyld Mana that has given the plant a powerful trunk harder than iron. Best used in construction or by artificers in staff creation.

Lemple Tree (Lesser)

A combination of a Lemon and an Apple Tree that grows a fruit with a sour outside and a sweet core. A favorite food of the Wood elves.

Itching Bush (Lesser)

A leafy bush that has been empowered by Wyld Mana to affect the sense of touch causing extreme itchiness anytime it rubs against the skin of a creature.

Venomthorn Vine (Lesser)

A prickly vine that has been empowered by Wyld Mana to have a potent toxin that causes localized numbness and eventually paralysis. Often used by doctors to numb an area before a painful procedure.

I planned on using the Venomthorn Vines and the Itching Bush to make moving off of the paths difficult but not impossible. I made sure to leave gaps so that my own creatures and survival trained adventurers could find their way off and on the paths. I then placed my four rewarding magical plants through the floor, increasing how many spawned the higher level the zone was. I made sure to place a few near paths to entice adventurers into the forest and to show what could be found on this floor. I also decided to surround the central plaza in fruiting and flowering trees to make the area brighter and more inviting.

Next I wanted to make some loot that actually came from beating mobs and challenges, things like currency and items. However I had no idea what the local currency was, nor did I have the blueprint for any items other than the tokens which I (mostly) made myself. I would have to wait for my first group of adventurers to get an idea of what to make as loot, so in the meantime I added a feature to the tokens that would give a custom dungeon currency to people that would then later be exchanged for a proper reward. Now for a name . . . oh right I needed both a dungeon name and a name for my new currency

But what to name my dungeon, this name would pretty much be my name in this new world. While I did like Mark as my own personal name, it was not a good dungeon name. No, I wanted something that would represent not just my current dungeon, but also the dungeon I would become in the future. I couldn’t let the adventurers name me or else I’d end up as the dungeon of life or something dumb like that. Hmmm, I was a True Core that was immortal and would be here on this world for likely the rest of time. I also had a mythical perk that allowed me to revive any who died in my depths. The Immortal Dungeon? No, that’s not quite right. It doesn't encapsulate everything that I am and will be. I’m going to be a permanent fixture upon this world that endlessly grows for the rest of eternity. Eternity. I like that. I think I’ll go with The Eternal Dungeon as my name. As soon as I thought it I felt a wave of power and got an ping from the system, I quickly opened my status.

User: Mark Level: 1

Title: The Eternal Dungeon

Race: True Dungeon Core (System)

Base Mana Generation: 10,000

Total Mana Generation: 10,000

Current Mana: 207,432

Mythic Perks: Deathless Dungeon (0 available)

Legendary Perks: Combined Core (0 available)

Superior Perks: Aspect of All (0 available)

Greater Perks: Wyld Affinity (0 available)

Lesser Perks: Enhanced Potency 2 (0 available)