Claiming the edge of my cave allowed me to view the outside world fully, and it was beautiful. A long sprawling forest stretched out before me, thick and massive pine trees grew in abundance and the twin sun shone beautifully in the clear and blue morning sky.

It was beautiful and I wanted to make something as beautiful as this one day, hopefully. I was surprised at how easy claiming some of the outside was, I had expected some mental drain or some resistance or something but nothing at all?

I mean, I didn’t claim much, just a few meters of my cave entrance, my domain ended where the stone of my cave stopped. That was probably why, I still wasn’t sure. I was glad though, I could finally see the outside world, finally!

I could look in all directions and I used that to look at myself and was surprised to see that I was just a cave at the base of a really strange mountain that stretched so far up it reached into the clouds. It was so vertical, with barely any cracks or signs of wear on it, it seemed brand new, as strange as that sounded.

Huh, that’s really magical and neat. I could make out other caves along the mountain as well but barely, they were all really far up and something distorted their image for some reason.

Finished with my examination of the world above, I turned my sight below and inspected all the things around my cave entrance. There was a dirt track, one that looked freshly carved and stretched all the way into the forest beyond my sight.

There was also a large piece of dried up wood on a pile of gray stone to the left, along with some burnt vines and bushes. Interesting, did she clear these to get inside of me? It sure as hell looked like it, the wood looked old, downright ancient. The vines too, but I couldn’t get any patterns from them for some reason.

I did get a pattern for the wood though, I managed to absorb some of the dirt too, netting me another pattern.

The third and final one though was the most interesting of them all, it was a pattern for a C-shaped fruit which I dubbed moon fruits since they remind me so much of the moon with their shape.

I had no clue where this one came from as I saw nothing like it on the outside which was odd and slightly concerning, I liked the pattern though.

I waited for my soul essence pool to fill up to what felt like a good amount then I got to work.

I willed into being two large square stone beams as tall as two humans stacked onto each other and fused them with the stone at the cave entrance and shaped the cave opening into a perfect square. Next, I made a large stone double door and fused it to the stone beams, with a bit of soul essence I was able to get the stone to function like plastic at the edges.

This would allow the door to be pushed inward without breaking the stone connecting to the beams. I waited for my soul essence to fill up quite a bit again and layered an enchantment over the entire thing, it would ensure that the stone door wouldn’t be destroyed that easily and could only be pushed inward.

Next, I moved on to decorating, for the stone beams I carved in intricate detail the body of a serpent with massive scales wrapped around each stone beam and transformed the top into the head of a serpent that faced outward with vertically slit eyes that held the sign of infinity.

For the front of the door, I carved the massive body of a serpent eating its tail on each door, then I carved four robed figures kneeling at the bottom, praying to the serpent. At the top of the door, I carved a massive eye with a vertically slit pupil that watched everything below with mild interest.

And in the middle, just above the serpent, I wrote the word “ouroboros” in English.

Phew, that took a lot more soul essence than I was expecting, I almost dipped into absolute zero territory!

I rested mentally while I waited patiently for my soul essence pool to fill up again before adding the finishing touch. What good dungeon didn’t have a doormat? I poured soul essence into the stone below the twin doors, willing them to extend until they hit the edge of my domain.

With that done, I shifted the stone in the middle and shaped it into a bright smiley face and spawned in some wood around the edges and fused them together. The wood was a bit too gray and pale for my taste though so I shifted it to a lighter color with a touch of soul essence and my masterice was complete.

Honestly, I was very proud of myself when I was done. I went above and beyond, and I was sure this was going to make the invading humans stop and stare for a good bit, the last bit was just for fun, and I couldn’t wait to see the reactions of all who came to my dungeon.

On a whim, I decided to decorate all my doors with the ouroboros symbol. I wonder what the humans will think when they see this symbol reappearing over and over in my dungeon.

I couldn’t wait to see it, but enough of that! It's time I made my second floor. I shifted my attention to the carved-out room. How did I want to do this? Did I want a typical jungle or something more unique? What could I even afford with my meager resources at the moment?

The question pushed me to look at my goals and motives, what kind of dungeon did I want to be exactly? How would my dungeon be different? I didn’t know, honestly, I only had a vague idea about what type of dungeon I wanted to be.

I had creative freedom, there was no system binding me, or limiting my growth artificially. So technically I had no real reason to stick to a specific theme for all my floors, which I was planning to do. My only limiting factor was the lack of usable patterns and soul essence, both of which I was sure could be solved in time.

While I didn’t know what type of dungeon I really wanted to be yet, I knew it wasn’t going to be one that’s limited. I wanted my floors to be as intricate and detailed as possible, each one feeling like a slice of a different world rather than just another room. Even the first floor, as it was now, didn’t meet my standards and I was going to reshape it until it did, later of course.

My thoughts were intruded when I sensed two balls of light approaching my dungeon entrance, I switched to my HD vision and saw that it was the human lady and a male, all clad in medieval knight armor.

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The woman stopped as soon as she saw my entrance, slapped the chatting male on the shoulder, and gestured to my double door.

“Gods above and below, what is that!?” She asked incredulously, staring at my newly crafted entrance with a mix of awe, shock, confusion and genuine terror.

“Lady Sero-, Gods above!” Cursed the other man, his mouth opening wide from sheer shock.

If I had a mouth and a voice box, I would’ve giggled like a child, this was exactly the type of reaction I wanted. Extreme wariness washed over her face as the woman, who I will now call Sero. She shifted, clearly uncomfortable with what she was seeing, her hand drifted to her the ornate handle of her sword and she tensed while looking at the man beside her.

The man, clad in iron armor, quickly recovered from his shock and looked back at her, flipped off his helmet and grinned wolfishly.

“Hahaha!” He laughed, either ignorant of Sero’s werness or simply didn’t care. “This is it Lady Sero! A chance to catapult our noble lineage back to the upper echelons of noble society! Bardum’s shiny bosom! Just think about how rich we’ll be!”

The man began advancing towards the entrance, heedless of what his female companion was saying.

“MARKUS!”

The air around Sero burst into flames and her eyes and hair shone a fiery red. I instantly switched to my soul sight, hoping to catch how she was doing that. The light around her body was ablaze, there was no other way to describe it.

Before it was colorless and calm, now it was raging inferno and burned white hot, in a metaphysical sense. A few seconds passed and I watched in fascination as the flaming soul essence retracted, pulling itself back to the top of her head, where it formed into a ball of red soul essence before disappearing behind a cloud of colorless soul essence that moved to cover it.

I switched back to my HD vision and saw her flames sputter out and die as she willed them out of existence when the armored man, who I now knew as Markus began to turn back. Fear was now written all over his face, a stark contrast to his previously wolfish look.

Sero was absolutely furious and grabbed Markus by the neck and dragged him into the forest, scolding him for his reckless behavior and greed as she did. I was deeply amused by their antics but returned my vision to the second floor.

That Markus guy did not have good thoughts in mind when he saw my grand entrance, greed was written all over his face, greed and hunger, deep and bottomless hunger for power. Was that how they saw dungeons in this world? As a means of progressing up the intricate ladder of nobility?

I wasn’t too sure, but I was sure that things would only get more interesting from here on out. I was hoping for the best but I had to prepare for the worst, and that meant deciding what type of floor I wanted.

Hmmm.

I wanted a forest floor, one that was filled with unique animals and hummed with life and biodiversity. Donut I could make something like that right now though with such a limited amount of patterns and soul essence.

Bummer, guess I had to work with what I had until later.

I began by digging out the bottom of the second floor and filled it up with soil. I made sure it was deep enough for roots to spread and have enough space to thrive and grow freely. Then I layered an enchantment on the soil, inputting thoughts of growth and nutrients into it.

The soul essence shited, hovered a few inches above the soul before seeping into it, causing real time changes, the soil visibly changed once the enchantment was complete, shifting from a dry brown to a rich and earthy black color.

Satisfied, I moved on to seeding the floor with trees. I formed a seed from the pattern and dropped it into the soil, with a touch of soul essence the seed sunk deep and burst forth a second later, rapidly growing into a tree.

That consumed the last bit of my soul essence and I waited for what felt like hours for it to fill up again and was about to continue when I paused and looked at the newly grown tree.

Though the pattern was interesting I didn’t think much of it, I just browsed the dense packet of information lightly and moved on to the other patterns and my thoughts, thinking it would be an ancient pine tree or something from the pine forest outside.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The tree that grew from the soil was so different. Its deep red leaves reminded me of maple trees, but they weren’t shaped like maple leaves, they were pointed and thin, almost like pine leaves.

Its smooth and thick trunk fully dispelled the notion that it was a maple tree, the tree was unique, and I wondered how it got near my cave entrance to begin with. I had gotten it from a rotten branch, so it wasn’t native to the forest either. In the end, I decided to name the pattern ember trees, since the general color of its leaves and bark reminded me so much of small embers and ash at the fire.

I quickly populated the edges of the floor with ember trees, willing some of their roots to grow along the walls until the black and gray stone was blocked out. I felt like stone would break the forest theme so I covered most of the walls up with thick moon fruit vines, leaving only a bit at a tunnel that I carved out that would eventually lead to my third floor.

Afterwards, I was left with a room that was starting to look like a forest. Now I just had to populate it further. I planted ember trees at random but made sure that there was room to run and walk. In the middle of the room was the largest ember tree. Growing up to the height of the floor and its branches spread outward, painting the entire ceiling a deep red.

I then hollowed out the stone above the ember tree a little and placed the largest soul lantern to date in the hollowed-out section. With a thought and a bit of soul essence, the light spread out over the entire floor, bathing the entire floor in a beautiful scarlet color as the rays of light passed through the ember tree leaves and onto the trees below.

I waited for my soul essence to regenerate again and willed them to seep into the leaves reflecting the light and pushed thoughts of toughness and transparency into it with the image I wanted.

The floor was a bit too crimson for my tastes and looked hellish instead of beautiful so I turned that down a bit.

At the base of the massive tree was a clearing that spanned from the trunk to the ring of smaller ember trees that surrounded it. Here, I spawned my first anole lizard and contemplated what type of mob I should turn it into.

Lizardmen were the first thing that came to mind, but I rejected the thought, I wanted something unique. I want to make lizardmen, eventually. But not now, and even they would have their own unique touch that separated them from common lizard men typically found in dungeon core novels.

Hmm, I got it!

I grabbed a chunk of my soul essence and diffused it into the anole lizard, then I got to work. I began by growing it until it was the size of 12 inches, and then I changed the color of its skin to a deep red, similar to the color of the ember tree leaves but a tad lighter. Next, I willed red bone spikes to grow along its back and gave them the ability to shoot them at will. These bone spikes were very sharp, and I layered an enchantment within the anole that would ensure that all future offspring would possess this.

The enchantment had cost me half of my entire reserve, which was totally unexpected. What gives?

This was something I had to further explore and sort out later. I had to wait another hour before my soul essence tank had regenerated, by that time night had already fallen. I wasn’t surprised by the fact that this world had a twin moon too, why not? The sun was a twin sun too, as ridiculous as that sounded.

The night sky was beautiful, twinkling azure, red and neon green stars dotted the sky en masse, some forming clusters and others swinging back and forth around each other in mesmerizing patterns of geometry.

I had no idea what I was looking at but it was darn beautiful, so much so that I spent another hour watching them, wondering if I could replicate something like that one day.

What type of power would that even take? I didn’t know, but I knew that it would have to be at a level that was near if not godlike.

Welp, back to my second floor!

After my soul essence was back to usable levels, I layered another costly enchantment over the creature. This one would make it have an easier time digging through dirt and would make sure that none stuck to its body, while also giving it an intuitive sense of structure that would help it dig structurally stable holes that it burrows in.

It would naturally know where to and not to dig.

I waited for my soul essence reserves to regenerate again before I copied the lizard, it cost a lot more than my ratlings, which was expected, they were a lot more special, after all.

The cost of replicating and maintaining them was still negligible though, at least compared to what it took to make it and wouldn’t impact my soul essence pool or its rate of regeneration too much.

I changed one to female, cursed and dissolved the other one when I realized that I could just make it asexual and left it alone. It quickly dug a hole that led to the bottom of the floor, hollowed it out and began reproducing almost instantly.