It was hit with a brief moment of existential crisis upon learning that it was just an existence inside a glowing gem. Suddenly and out of nowhere, Information flooded it's brain. It knew what it was.

It was not a he or a she but an It. It was neither living nor non-living. It was not a creature nor a thing. It was a special existence. A Dungeon Core.

It was still stuck on the notion that it was not a living creature but a gem. It felt like it was a living creature before, a creature called human. It's entire being screamed that it is a human.

Thus it made a decision. It created its own identity, both rejecting and accepting it's past and present.

"Ozymandias. My name is Ozymandias. I am a He. I am a Dungeon Core with a human soul."

The core had no mouth but his words echoed in the dome. It was a voice created by mana. A vocal intent.

The sudden outburst from Ozymandias caused the creatures in his domain to buzzed out. A few seconds later, the creatures calmed down and resume their normal activities again. These were insects after all. As well as bugs and arachnid.

Ozymandias felt into a silent meditation. He accepted his new reality. But at the same time, he wanted to have a body, an organic body not just a gem.

Ozymandias realised at the same time that he was strong compared to the critters in the den but weak compare to what lays beyond. He knows it and how he knows that, he didn't care for that was the truth. Thus,he wanted to grow strong.

However, as a dungeon core, his first and foremost duty was to create and maintain his own dungeon, which he didn't have right now. He look at his surroundings.

“This will do. My dungeon first room.”

He let out his mana not in tendrils but in waves. His mana spread through the walls of the den, claiming the den as his dungeon but by bit.

In order not to depleted his mana, Ozymandias grab the pranas in the air. Pranas also get drawn and enter his body without his goading like he had his own force of attraction towards the prana.

But the amount of mana expended was greater than the mana gained. So he tried a new way to gain greater amount of prana to fuel his mana production.

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As his mana claimed most part of the den, tendrils shot out of the floor and start to latch on the now purified but rotten corpse of the corrupted mongoose. The tendrils began to absorb the remaining prana from the corpse. The place where the tendrils latch on began to dry up and crumbled to the ground like dust.

The prana from the corpse were of better quality than the one found freely in the air.

With renewed strength, Ozymandias speed up the claiming of the den. By dusk, he had claimed the entire chamber. Then, he moved to the tunnel. It took greater amount of mana as the tunnel, though only one way and small was thrice as long as the den. He also noticed smaller holes in the tunnel but he didn't bother. For now, he claimed only half a feet into the soil with his mana and that alone was taking a toll.

When morning broke, he had reach the outside world. Though he cannot see far from his own peripheral vision, his mana brought snips of images of the surface.

The images were dyed in black and white as usual but Ozymandias didn't mind. He saw boulders and sand everywhere. There was no sign of the thing called tree or grass though he did see something called a cactus.

The outside world didn't excite him as much as he thought it would. The only exciting thing about the outside world was the amount of prana present freely in the air.

“Should I claim part of the outside?“

Ozymandias tried but found that it was a hard task. He lost much more of his mana trying to claim above ground than he did underground. In trying to claim a patch a land just outside of the mouth, he lost nearly half of his mana reserve. And thus, Ozymandias decided to not take claim the outside.

Having completed claiming the first room of his dungeon, Ozymandias focus within, that is the insects. He wanted to claimed some of the insects but which ones. He fixated on one. The Spiders.

But it was a tough experiment. He didn't knew how to claim a creature. The first three spiders died as soon as his mana infused into them. The fourth survived but instead of being a creature under his command, the spider became maddened as the mana turned to miasma and attacked the core.

In self defense, Ozymandias had to killed the spider by using his mana tendrils. Only one spider remained in the den and three more in the tunnel. This time he tried a different approach. Instead of forcefully injecting his mana into the spider, he injected the mana into his captured prey subtly as he didn't want to create corrupted creatures.

He also injected mana into the eggs that the wasps and flies had laid inside the corpse but in miniscule amount every now and then. When noon approach, he noticed that the spider had eaten one of the prey injected with his mana. The mana that was injected into the prey had transferred to the spider but was not harming her.

Thus, he decided to experiment further. He subtly injected some mana into the spider every now and then. By dusk, he noticed that the spider had moulted and grown twice its former size. It's carapace look shinier and harder. It's body had less hair. It's eyes had a different glow than before. Also it had a tiny crystal made of mana, bearing Ozymandias signature in its abdomen.

Upon looking at the spider, Ozymandias learnt what being happy and excited meant as he felt these newfound emotions. He felt a link of connection with the spider. He had succeeded. After working hard for two days straight, he had succeeded in claiming his first dungeon and dungeon monster.