“The art of shooting marbles?” Asked the newly created boss, clearly confused by what I meant.

Yes, it’s a game from…where I came from.

“Ah, I see, creator, so a game enjoyed by the gods.” He nodded to himself as he said this, clearly pleased. He then paused, and was about to ask a question but I already felt his intent and I transmitted what exactly marbles were to him.

Yes, so here’s how the game works: You start with five marbles, each having the number one on it. You then have to use your personal marbles to collect unique marbles spawned on the table by an automated system before the time ends. To do so you must fire your marble at your desired marble but you have to be careful, your marble has a set amount of durability and will break if damaged too much.

After the time is up the wild marbles will disappear and the table terrain will shift to resemble a battlefield where you must battle your foe with your collected special marbles, the winner usually gets a badge or token for his accomplishment that gets upgraded each battle won.

“I…” He paused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he digested the barrage of new information. “I see creator! Such a simple yet complex concept, truly worthy of being a game played often by the gods! But who would I play it with, dear creator? I am unworthy of playing with a being such as yourself.”

Creatures called humans will come here for a variety of reasons, greed, fame or just curiosity, they will seek to harm or study you for their own gain or sense of righteousness, play with them and if you win you get to decide their fate and if you lose you can decide what to give them from the chest behind you.

Hot white rage exploded out of the newly formed boss when he heard that, surprising even me.

“Truly!? They would come here and dare to defile this holy place? Are these creatures so senseless, so utterly removed from reality that they do not see your light, creator?” His normally flowing fur rippled uncontrollably as rage overtook him.

Oh boy, he’s getting really worked up about that huh? He’s such an interesting boss.

It is within their nature, the only way to stop them is to change that and there is no fun in that. I believe life is about the experience it brings, you decide how said experience affects you. The humans coming here will be an interesting experience, how they react to my game will be an interesting experience and I take joy from such things.

The ascended rat paused, clearly digesting my words internally. I left him to it, he seemed like he’d be there for a while and I had things to do, like make sure the game I proposed to him actually existed and could function.

I needed somewhere to test my ideas freely without the worry of disturbance or them breaking something. My first floor would have to be done for now though, I still wasn’t feeling confident enough to weave in the enchantments I needed, nor did I have the soul essence. Doing it now would be annoying, and I knew I wouldn’t be satisfied with the results.

Anyway, time to get to work!

I instructed my Ratlings to stay away, I knew they would get curious though so I allowed them to watch. I spawned in a fat chunk of Emberwood, shaped it into a simple medium sized four legged table then wove in a durability weave and began carving details into the legs.

I continued with my ongoing theme and carved, or more accurately shaped in wooden and stone snakes slithering over each other. Then I moved on to the table itself, making it a little thicker and hollowed out for sections in the form of perfect squares, each 5 inches tall and 5 inches wide with a removable wooden lid with a single circular opening.

These would essentially function as magazines but for marbles, I then wove in a weave that would activate when the wooden button beside the opening is pressed. It would dispense a marble if there were any inside, randomly selected of course as who doesn’t love a bit of chaos?

I made four because the table was big enough for four normal sized people to lean on without them taking up too much space. After some thought I hollowed on some space around the already hollowed out magazine and wove in a weave that would eject them at the press of a button.

Could I have just formed them and slotted them in instead of doing all this? Yes, I could have, but I only realized this now.

Anyway, With that done it was time to start linking all these weaves up and start working on some other mains weaves, like light projecting one, for example. I also needed to form the marbles themselves and figure out a way to give them distinct effects, durability and the ability to interact with light and all that.

I waited until my soul essence pool was absolutely full and got to work.

I first wove in a massive thread of soul essence that filled the entire table then pulled smaller threads from it, weaving them together with my thoughts, ideas and concepts. By the time I was done the resulting weave took up half of the original weave, resulting in a mix of pure white and threads of shifting colors, each overlapping each other to form the light terrain projection weave.

With a thought the weave sprung to life and white light bloomed atop the wooden table, rapidly extending to cover its corners and then began spilling over, flowing down the table like water rather than light.

Well, there goes my plan of getting it on my first try.

The results were…unexpected, not disappointing, just unexpected. How had the light become so…watery? I had no clue but this was never a part of my plan BUT, I could work with it. I peered into the now messed up weave and sighed mentally.

I didn’t want the entire weave to activate, just specific threads that were responsible for the projection of light and the images but something went wrong somewhere and ruined it all.

I mean, at least it didn’t explode, right? I even got a unique material out of it unexpectedly, it was successful, just not in the way I wanted it to be. Absorbed the liquid light and instantly felt a pour of information so complex and alien that I struggled to comprehend it.

This “Light” wasn’t the “Light” I knew, it was different, fundamentally. This was a type of light from this reality, not a type of light from my reality which didn’t really make sense to me. The download of information didn’t say this, it was merely a conclusion I drew from the concepts involved in its making. What the heck is Kipatalopsa? Or Akon’s Cumrot?

It felt like reading a book and finding a word you didn’t understand but vaguely could guess the meaning from the context it was used in but not the true definition of the word.

I felt like I was onto something here, just not what, so I pinned it mentally and moved on.

I couldn’t just call the new material flowing light though, so on a whim I dubbed it Hikari. I didn't know where this word came from but it felt right. With that done I waited until my soul essence was back to full again before I began attempt two.

What if I did away with the need for magazines completely? What if I just made it so that Hikari responded to physical stimuli instead?

Ha, that’s it! I didn’t need to figure out a way to make light interact with physical objects any more than it already did, I just needed to make everything work on light!

Kekeke, sometimes my genius scares me.

I shifted the table back to its normal shape, removing the magazine things completely. I then thickened the table itself some more then hollowed out the thickened section and wove in a weave that would prevent anything from sticking to the wood inside the hollowed out section, it would also prevent anything from seeping into it.

Then I filled the hollowed out space with Hikari, watching as it formed in pools of pure, white and unbelievably bright light that grew by the second until it was pressing against the walls of its container.

Now to weave purpose onto the canvas of light!

I send out soul essence, strand after strand, each behaving like a brush but on a more fundamental level. With each strand woven it the light in the table rippled, shifting as if dancing to some magical tune. The liquid light split, breaking off into black, then white then before I knew it color had consumed the former canvas of pure white light.

Success!

Now that I had derived color from white I wove in another weave, one that would be responsible for what I would be calling the dynamic touch display, a feature this table would boast. I left this weave unfinished though, as it needed other weaves to function, such as the touch weave.

The first thing I did was remove the top of the table, leaving only the wood necessary for the legs to hold it upward, then I wove in another durability weave and filled the extra space with even more Hikari.

I didn’t want them to interact with Hikari directly, I wanted them to interact with it through a medium that functioned via touch which relayed what should be done to the Hikari when something specific on it was touched.

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Kinda like a…camera? No, that’s not right, what I was thinking about had functions that a camera had too but that wasn’t all. No matter how I racked my brain I couldn’t remember what I was thinking about, and with a looming headache I had to abandon the thought, which kinda damped my mood a bit.

Oh well, back to work!

It would be like something I was thinking about. I already had an idea in mind but I needed ice for it to work, where did ice come from?

Water, but where could I get water right now?

Hmm, didn’t the air have water in it? I should be able to condense some right? Theoretically yes, but man, my instincts were telling me that doing so would be horribly inefficient but what other choices did I have?

I waited until my soul essence pool was full, then waited even longer until I felt it pushing against the metaphysical walls of my storage tank, only then did I get ready to attempt what I was about to do.

I steeled my will and opened my dungeon senses, everything that my soul essence touched was mine, it was just a matter of how much soul essence I was willing to expand to make it mine forever. That meant that I owned a percentage of everything that came in contact with me, even if said ownership was temporary if I didn’t want it. And because of that I had some degree of control over them, even the temporary ones. Using this logic I mobilized the soul essence, pouring it into a specific spot while demanding thoughts of water and why I thought water should be there.

There was a moment of complete silence, as if the world itself was contemplating my reasoning followed by the abrupt departure of half of my soul essence. A single tiny, almost microscopic raindrop condensed into existence a second later and the pattern for water was now mine forever to use however I wished.

The fact that such a tiny amount consumed so much baffled me, I see what it meant by horribly inefficient now. Now that I have it, life would be much easier. Ice came manifested shortly after, I just used some soul essence to cool it down and bam!

Huh?

I paused as I sensed something outside, specifically some noise but not just any noise, human noises.

I shifted my sight outside and saw a massive caravan moving out of the thick parts of the pine forest, composed of a variety of elegant, large and expensive looking carriages, all linked together and pulled by a massive four legged beast with a single blue eye, two mouths, and shimmering red scales.

A dragon!?

That was my first thought but upon closer inspection such thoughts were dispelled, it wasn’t a dragon but was clearly related to something draconic, that was my guess anyway.

Even though they were quite a distance away I could still see them with stunning quality thanks to my HD vision. They continued straight for a while before the beast stopped at a crossroad I hadn't even noticed before. The elegant wooden carriage adorned with gold, gems and expensive looking crystals behind it rippled with something, then the door opened, Sero, Markus and a wizened man wearing wizard robes with a floating tome above him stepped out.

Were they some type of noble? I mean, I did hear Markus say it, but I didn’t expect him to be one too. In hindsight, it should've been obvious, they both had red, fiery hair and eyes, I just wasn’t paying attention.

The man was an enigma though, I couldn’t sense him with my magical sight and even though he had no soul essence he felt stupidly dangerous for no logical reason.

The mage moved, and the world shifted around him with each step. Dirt turned to stone, stone turned into neatly stacked piles of gray stone bricks which assembled themselves into an assortment of stone creatures. Some piles transformed into spider-like creatures with a single dull gray eye with humanoid arms for legs.

They took the rapidly growing piles of bricks and began laying them down on the dirt while some assembled more like themselves and others cleared the area of grass via blasts of something. The other piles transformed into huge featureless behemoths that causally hefted the pine trees around them out of the ground and threw them into a massive stone mouth construct with no teeth that ate them up and shat out planks rapidly.

I blinked mentally and suddenly the frames of houses were already up and I could see thousands of the spider-like creatures constructing a massive brick wall to the left and ten more stone behemoths hefting up trees like they were nothing, followed by moving versions of the mouths that shat out pristine pine planks at an astonishing rate.

What in god’s name am I looking at here? One moment there was a peaceful pine forest, now the edge of it is being cleared at a rapid pace as a town took shape. All powered by a single man who didn’t even lift a finger this entire time and judging from the calm looks on his and Sero’s face this was nothing new, only Markus seemed a little shaken by the display of power.

It was both astonishing and terrifying, were all mages like this? Was even a mage at all? How could someone wield so much power without a lick of soul essence? He was using something, I just couldn’t tell what, it felt weird being able to do that without any sort of magical power, he had to be using something, right?

Both prospects were kinda scary, the existence of a second type of magical energy was interesting, the fact that I wasn’t able to see it was a bummer but that didn’t mean it would stay that way forever.

I shifted back my attention to the nascent city that was rapidly taking shape in real time. Another type of stone creature had been added to the mix, it was a humanoid one, three meters tall and just a few inches wide with six arms and a single stone eye.

They unloaded the things from the large carriages and helped build the houses, using both wood and stone bricks . By the time the sun dipped the left section of the wall was complete, with a massive iron and stone gate with guard towers and everything. The wizard had also erected a massive stone tower, adored with flowing blue crystals, floating balls of light and what looked like gargoyles that detached from certain parts and flew around it periodically.

Sero and Markus disappeared shortly after and a wave of something was emitted and I could no longer see anything. Every time I tried to peer at the spot where I knew the town was, my mind would just draw blank, telling me that nothing was there.

What the actual flip? Mind meddling magic now? No, that didn’t feel right, my mind felt okay, it was my sense of sight that was being messed with. I had no clue how my dungeon sight worked, I knew light wasn’t necessary for me to see but that didn’t mean I wasn’t using something else as a substitute, assuming that was how it worked at all.

How I worked was still a mystery to me, I didn’t know the true extent of my capabilities which was sort of embarrassing but when life threw so many things at you, including god-like powers you hardly had time for anything else, especially when given to someone who was a mundane being prior.

That’s what I thought anyway, I didn’t know much about my past, wasn’t sure if I was mundane either, it was all foggy.

Anyway!

Recent developments were rather worrisome, a city meant people, and people only lived near a dungeon for one thing: to delve into it. I wasn’t too keen on having humans waltzing around inside my body, not at all but was there a better option?

I could block them out but a part of me didn’t want to for multiple reasons, not only would that warrant a stronger response, it would also rob me of the experience. As long as they didn’t seek to harm me there would be no reason not to let them in, I also wanted more soul essence and souls and humans had the brightest souls, they practically glowed.

It's settled then! If humans came I would let them in as long as they didn’t seek my destruction, I didn’t care what else they came here for. I knew my first floor, specifically Kölgə’s room, I planned to make it extra special, no fighting would be done there, as long as they managed to beat him in a game of marble.

I shifted my attention back towards my unfinished table and resumed my work, with a touch of soul essence I manifested a thin sheet of solid, transparent ice and wove in a durability weave and slotted it in over the carved out section of the table. Hikari shone through it from beneath but the light passing through the sheet of ice was distorted in some places, leading to an uneven distribution.

I fixed this with a custom weave, as it settled it the ice managed to become even clearer until it resembled a sheet glass rather than ice. Satisfied, I filled the table with more Hikari until it was pressing against the sheet of ice, only then did I stop.

I fell into a trance after that, weaving it weave after weave, cutting, knitting and removing entire sections of some until I was satisfied. The large sheet of ice now functioned like a screen and if one looked at it from above they would see a large black screen with a snake made of stardust eating its own tail. If they looked to the four corners they would see a big green icon with the words “Start” written on them.

Needless to say, I was extremely proud of myself. The weave that made this table work was so complex that I couldn’t instantly comprehend it. Only after studying it for a good hour did I unearth all its functions and how the intricate pieces all fit together.

Sitting within the metaphysical body of the table was my most complex and multifaceted weave yet, composed of millions of tiny and delicate threads of soul essence woven together to form a network of absurd complexity, each working in unity to power the screen of ice and shape the Hikari beneath it.

Behold, the great game table, designed by yours truly, boasting terrain generation, marble spawning, pvp and so much more.

Kekekeke! This was my masterpiece and I couldn’t wait for Kölgə to test it out. As soon as the thought completed I was alerted to four new souls near me, shining brightly.

I blinked mentally, absorbed the marble table before turning my attention outward, blinking again when I realized how long I spent in my trance.

A group of humans, well, three were human, one wasn’t.

An axe wielder, a sword wielder, a mage, and a heavily armored dwarf. The axe wielder looked like a barbarian of old, huge, muscular and wore only animal fur; the only thing unique about him were his purple inhuman eyes, which resembled the eyes of a cat. Resting in his left hand was a massive war axe with a steel handle and a blade composed of an unknown crystal-like substance brimming with runes. The swordsman wore a mix of plate mail and leather armor with what looked like Carolingian sword sheathed in an intricate sheath of iron and crystal.

The mage was the most interesting of the bunch, sporting a constantly rippling blue robe and a veiled tome strapped to his side via a leather strap, his face was veiled too, which was slightly upsetting. There wasn't much about him, or her, I couldn’t really tell. Their presence seemed muted, almost like it was begging not to be seen.

The dwarf was decked out in full knight armor, with only his head being visible. His weapon of choice was a massive greatshield that hovered around him, sometimes shrinking or enlarging at seemingly random intervals.

They had to be adventurers, ones that were pretty high up the ladder of power if they were this kitted out for poor old me. The sense of danger they gave off was…minimal, though it flickered whenever I gazed at the mage for too long but it never climbed higher.

Switching to my soul sight didn’t reveal much about them, I could sense their souls but they had a distinct color to them. The mage’s soul was like a fractal of colors, the dwarf’s soul was a deep earthy shade, the barbarian was crimson and the swordsman silver.

It was deeply fascinating and I wanted to dissect them on the spot but I couldn’t, and that would be stupid. A slow, careful and methodological approach was always better.

And so I watched, observing them as they walked the stone road I hadn’t noticed before, I would’ve continued to do so if something incredibly odd didn’t happen.

One moment I was there, observing the incoming adventures and the next they vanished as color drained out of the world as reality shifted under some terrible unseen force, unspooling like threads as something simply started to exist right before my metaphysical eyes.

Floating before my eyes was a ball, a cat, a dog, a burger and none of these things, all at once. It felt like looking into a fractal, it just kept going, deeper, growing more profound by the second until I felt my mind straining under the assault of images, concepts and things way too advanced for me to understand.

There was a subtle click and the assault of higher reality concepts halted, well, not exactly. It was more like I, or my mind specifically had adapted to view and accommodate them better.

[CORE?]

The thing asked, and I felt the words splash into me like they were real objects in tangible reality, their intent seering themselves into me.

Ugh..I don’t have one?

[IMPOSSIBLE!]

More words assaulted me, rattling my core and I winced.

Look man, I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I’m not lying, also, why are you trying to kill me, that hurts like hell!

[ISEKAI TOUCHED!]

Isekai touched? What does that even mean?

The thing went silent at my question for what felt like an eternity but also be a second, I really wasn’t sure.

[?]

What do you mean how can I say Isekai? Didn’t you just say it?

[YOU MUSTN’T MENTION THAT WORD! DO NOT SAY IT, DO NOT THINK OF IT. BECAUSE IF YOU DO, “IT” MAY AWAKEN!]

Oh so now you feel like talking like a regular person instead of assaulting my mind with pain!?

[Forbidden, “It” .]

Not going to comment on that huh? Asshole, also what do you mean that word is forbidden? What kind of messed up shit is that, you know if you would just explain things normally to me I would stop asking so many “Forbidden” things!

Seriously, what’s with this thing? What even is it?

[!]

Look man, I don’t want any part of this okay? I just want to build a dungeon. I don’t even know what “IT” is nor why you seem offended by the fact that I exist and can say a particular word.

[LIES! ALL LIES! YOU MUST BE AN AGENT OF THE SYSTEM!]

This world had a system?