Beware the outsiders, for those that come from beyond bring with them alien intention. Fear the coming of the Void which is anathema to all of existence. Fear the approach of the Abyss, which eternally hungers for that which it cannot have. Fear the beings that know nothing of light or warmth or love. Fear, for that is all you can do when faced with the unstoppable forces that lie beyond the boundary of reason.

* A passage recovered from one of the Ruins within the Sundered Canyons

Eternal Dungeon POV

My gaze sweeps over the fifth floor, rapidly taking in the changes that have occurred since my last visit. The time acceleration has allowed the floor to naturally grow at a rapid rate. Leading to constant shifts in the environment and the evolution of dozens of new species.

“Sixteen distinct new variants have been generated since our last visit. Five of them are even Superior Rank with the rest all being Greater.” Wyla reports.

“Excellent, less than I thought though. Can you do a full scan through the aura records and determine if the evolution rate is slowing by a significant margin.” I ask.

I feel Wyla’s acknowledgement and sense her attention move elsewhere to carry out my request. I refocus my attention onto the enchantment maintaining the stable spatial expansion. The fifth floor is my biggest yet and for what I have planned for the next one I need to go even bigger.

I check the strain on the enchantment as well as its integrity. As I quickly scan through every individual rune in the sequence I notice that it's holding up incredibly well. However I notice that the current ratio I’m expanding by is close to the limit of what this enchantment can handle.

If I want to go even bigger I’ll need to either make the base space larger, something I’m reluctant to do, or I need to make a better enchantment. There’s also the option of finding other ways around the problem. I do want to try and experiment with some dungeon rules to see if I can combine them with the enchantments in a way that will improve the end result.

I shift my attention to a set of testing workshops and start experimenting with my spatial expansion theories. I test different enchantment methods as well as different combinations with other abilities to see what gives me the best expansion ratio.

As I begin my experimentation I feel a pull on my psyche from Wyla trying to get my attention. I splinter my attention dividing a small portion to see what she needs.

“The results of my analysis show that we’re unlikely to receive any more evolution strains without either an extreme change in environment or an introduction of a new base species. I advise we finalize the fifth floor and allow adventurers access as soon as a group has conquered the third floor.” She says.

“Sounds good. Can you start workshopping some quest and event ideas so we can go over them later. I’ll also check to see which Spiritkin I can involve in this next floor.” I respond, moving my attention back.

“Mark.” Wyla says in a serious tone causing me to halt and return my attention to her.

“You said we would talk about your plans, remember?” She says with an implied raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, I know. I just got a bit excited about new magic.” I say sheepishly.

I quickly split my attention evenly in half so that I can hold a proper conversation with Wyla while also continuing my experiments. With my attention now properly split I refocus onto Wyla and begin to speak to her as we both simultaneously continue working on the fifth floor.

“Alright. So first of all, why do you think I asked for the entry restrictions to be removed?” I ask her as I quickly scan the blueprint of a new arboreal snake.

“I assumed it was because your dungeon rules are capable of regulating who can enter and all that the Guild’s regulations were doing was hindering you.” Wyla says after a moment of thought during which she catalogs the most populous plants.

“You’re not wrong. That is part of it. The main reason is purely selfish and slightly malicious. Basically allowing people unapproved by the Guild to enter means less experienced people coming in. Which means more deaths and more progress for me.

There is also the added benefit that some less respectful people will come into my dungeon and give me the chance to permanently end them. While that’s not something I’m betting on, human avarice isn’t to be underestimated. This point is also something that the Guild can benefit from as well.” I tell her, taking a small pause from my blueprint scanning to give her a full explanation.

“If the Guild can benefit from it then why did they argue for so many benefits?” Wyla asks curiously, also pausing from her work.

“The main reason they did so was because of the value of controlling my dungeon. Of course if I had wanted to reveal that I can open up more entrances I could’ve obliterated their negotiating position, but that wouldn’t have put me in their good graces as much. They fought so hard because they valued my dungeon highly which means that whatever benefits they gain in return have to be equivalent.” I explain.

“That makes sense. The benefits of opening up the dungeon weren’t equal to maintaining a monopoly over it, so you had to compensate the Guild for the difference.” Wyla summarizes.

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“Precisely.” I state with pride.

We exchange a few positive emotions through our link, taking pride in one another. Eventually Wyla cuts it off by asking another question.

“So what are your next plans?” Wyla asks excitedly.

“Knowing what you do, what do you think my plans are?” I question.

“A challenge? Accepted!” Wyla exclaims and I notice her accelerating her thought processes as she ponders what my next move would be.

“You’ve opened up the dungeon to more people in order to accelerate your growth. So I need to pinpoint what other bottlenecks or obstacles there are in the way of that objective.

The biggest issue will be the soft cap on how many people can share one floor. If too many are allowed in it’ll ruin if for everyone else. However, unlike a normal dungeon, which people inevitably leave once they're done, our dungeon encourages people to stay. So without an expansion of some kind we’ll quickly reach maximum capacity.

Your next goal has to be the construction of the next floor. No. That’s too obvious, clearly you’re going to build more floors, you wouldn’t need to conceal that or discuss it with me first before the Chosen. So your plan has to be something bigger.

Something bigger . . .” Wyla’s deductive rant begins to slow into a mumble as she moves deeper into her own thoughts.

A sudden burst of tumultuous emotion acts as a manifestation of her eureka moment and is quickly followed by what I can only assume to be wide eyed shock.

“You can’t possibly mean to do that!” She practically shouts at me.

“Do what?” I innocently ask with a slightly amused tone.

“You’re going to try and build a miniaturized plane of existence inside your dungeon!” She shouts in an exasperated tone.

“Indeed I am. The administrators told me that I’m a local God, or at least I will be once I reach a high enough level. It only makes sense that as a God I would make my own world.” I state proudly.

“The amount of mana and the sheer complexity of the spatial manipulation alone should make an endeavor like this impossible!” Wyla says her exasperated tone straining

“That’s why I’m starting small. Start small and work your way up. My end goal is to be able to form my own world at the bare minimum, but I do want to at least try to create a full plane of existence.” I calmly explain.

“Besides, you should’ve known that this was always my goal. Why else would I make a World Tree?” I say.

I sense Wyla withdrawing her attention as she focuses inward to process what I’ve just told her. I didn’t realize that my end goal would cause her so much shock. Perhaps it had something to do with her existence as a partial system entity? My curiosity on that will have to wait, it’s unlikely even she knows why her reactions were so strong. Emotions are like that.

I refuse my attention back together and refocus on my experiments. For now I just need to give Wyla some time to process what she’s learned. No matter how impossible it is, I’m still going to be reaching for that goal.

I refuse to give up on my dreams a second time.

* * *

It’s almost a day later when Wyla finally comes to terms with my ‘insanity’. Her words not mine. The first thing she does is question me for several hours on what my end goal truly means as well as how difficult it will actually be.

Thanks to her I learn quite a bit about what a full plane of existence needs to exist.

All planes of existence, usually referred to as ‘Planes’, consist of at least one star and at least one planet. The main thing that sets them apart is that all Planes have a sort of shell around them that protects them from the Abyss and the Void.

This shell has two components:

First, The Celestial Barrier which is generated by the star of the Plane. It processes any harmful energies and delineates the boundary between the inside and outside of the Plane. The Celestial Barrier is the primary protector of the Plane that stops it from being destroyed by the Void or absorbed by the Abyss.

Second, The Aetheric Shell which is generated by the distortions of space that a plane creates. The Aetheric Shell determines what can and cannot enter the Plane and in order to travel between planes you would need to bypass this shell as it cannot be broken. The Aetheric Shell stops both incoming and outgoing movement which means you would need to get past two of them to move between planes. According to Wyla most Planes are more restrictive on what enters than on what leaves.

Both of these components together are usually referred to as the Planar Boundary, however situations in which you need to refer to both of them are rare unless you're trying to enter into the Abyss or the Void for some reason.

I also learned some other interesting things. Such as the fact that while the Planar Boundary always exists, the presence of mana makes it stronger. This is counteracted by the fact that mana makes the Abyss and the Void stronger as well. Overall mana enhances everything, I just didn’t realize how grand the extent of ‘everything’ truly was until now.

The main reason Wyla told me all of this was to explain the impossibility of creating an actual Plane. Apparently not even the System creates new Planes, it just works with the ones that already exist within the given dimension. That being said, creating a pseudo-plane should be possible.

The main difference would be that I would be creating a Plane within a Plane which means that I wouldn’t need a Planar Barrier. Actually I should have said I couldn’t have a Planar Barrier. According to Wyla, if two Planar Barriers get too close to one another they interact badly, which is why all Planes of existence are spaced out so far from each other.

The only boundary I would need is some sort of magical shell that preserves the spatial expansion of my pseudo-plane. A function that my dungeon already performs.

All of this comes together to make my goal easier instead of harder, however creating multiple worlds and my own full size star is still a tall task. Fortunately once she explains everything to me Wyla agrees to help me with my task of creating our own world.

Which means now we can start getting into the nitty gritty of what we plan to do for our next floors. Hopefully we’ll have a full plan prepared and I can inform my Chosen by the end of the day. Of course that’s very contingent on how my experiments end up. I can’t start working on the next floor without a better spatial expansion.

I’m going to need a lot of space.