I looked around for the perfect spot to put a hallway. Here should do it... I thought while looking at a random spot on the wall. I absorbed some stone, just enough that it made me reach slightly more than double capacity, and a hint of pain tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Hey, that's starting to get dangerous. You should stop it."
So, I waited until the pain went away and my max capacity caught up. Then I absorbed Mana equal to my maximum amount. I waited. I did it again and again and again many times. I actually found it kind of relaxing, just watching the light inside of me safely grow.
A little less than a metre in, and I felt a pressure in me. I looked at my Mana and saw it.
Mana:1m/1m
Tier Ascending in progress...
What did that mean? Never mind that huge amount of Mana, but what was that under it?
I looked at the Mana in me. It had reached the edges of my stone body and started to compress. I glanced at the screen and back. Okay. I'll help this along if I can.
And so, I pressed my will onto my Mana, forcing it to compress at a faster rate. I had to take breaks sometimes, as it was strenuous, but it finished in just a few minutes with a massively blinding grain of solid Mana in my core.
I looked at my new status.
Dave Dungeon Core T1
Lvl:0 EXP:0/1 T1 Mana:1/1 T1 Mana Regen.:0.01/min
Phew. I thought tiredly. I'm going to nap... I was out like a light.
~~~~
Some time later, I slowly woke up and came to my senses. I didn't know Dungeon Cores even needed sleep. I looked at my status again in amazement. 1 million Mana turned into 1 T1 Mana?! And my Level is unlocked! I tried creating a small cube of stone and looked back at my Mana.
T1 Mana:1/1
Still full. Huh. I absorbed the cube of stone.
The only way that could have happened in my mind was that the cube of stone that would have taken 2 Mana before, translated into something like 2 millionths of a T1 Mana point, which regenerated in the time it took to open my status. Neat. I thought. But what does being Tier 1 entail?
Suddenly a trickle of information flowed into my mind. Oh. So it just means that I'm a proper adult of my kind, compresses my Mana to a size where it won't make me explode, and it accesses extra system functions.
I can guess at least two. One extra system function is what made that happen. And the other is the level system.
But before my mind goes off track, I decided to finish expanding.
A few hours later, when I finished creating the hallway, it was roughly 5 metres long, 2 metres tall, and 3 metres wide. While looking at it, I suddenly realised that before I was reborn, I probably wouldn't have been able to focus on something for that long. Anyways...
T1 Mana:~9.4/9.4
Nice. It doesn't look like much, but it's worth a lot. I continued to dig, this time making a room. I constantly glanced at my Mana indicator and kept on commenting on how quickly it grew. In the process, I found another type of stone, granite, and hit a small vein of copper. I was digging, not just single centimetre blocks at a time, but 10 cm and larger blobs. And then I uncovered it.
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A bright green line in the rock. I absorbed a small 1 cm cube, and it gave 0.001 Tier 1 Mana. Yes. One. Thousandth. Of a point. Of Mana. Much more than the same volume of stone. I quickly absorbed the rest and finished making the room. It took a long time to finish, perhaps longer than I should have been able to focus on one thing for, I realised again, but I guess my new body had something to do with that. I looked at the finished room which was very... natural-looking. It even had a random crack where I absorbed the copper and didn't bother to fill it in with stone. 10 meters wide, 10 meters tall, and 5 meters high! I admired it. My handiwork, made just by ME. And my Mana is...
T1 Mana:~167.7/167.7
Geez. ... I guess that means I can make almost 170 million cockroaches. And then I remembered my Mana regen. And I can do that every 100 minutes.
...
Hm. That's... Okay. Although, according to my calculations, I should have more Mana. I then looked over the room which had bits sticking out all over the place, which would explain my 'lack' of Mana. It doesn't really matter. I thought. If anyone stumbles on this, they wouldn't instantly think, 'DUNGEON'. But then again, I plan on having hallways. ... Alright. It's fine, I'll have my creatures protect me.
I instantly get started on that by producing cockroaches in the recently created room one by one. Then I thought, This is too slow and boring. I'm planning on creating millions. Mass production? If possible of course. I first tried to create 2 at once. 3 seconds later, they appeared right next to each other. I mentally gave a broad grin and tried to create 5 million cockroaches in there at once. A few seconds later, I quickly regretted my decision. Nooo! I screamed as they flooded into my core room and got squished against my Core which luckily, was unharmed, even though there were insect body parts all over it. I looked at the devastation.
Squished bodies on the walls, many cockroaches injured. In total, just under a million dead. Not doing that ever again. I first created and shaped stone beneath me so I lay inside a bowl which in turn, lay on top of a pedestal. No more potentially lethal accidents... I hope. I quickly absorbed all the dead insects, starting from my Core, and built a series of small tunnels in the other room leading down to a smooth thin cave which was even bigger in width and length than the room above, but was only a couple of centimeters in height.
I ordered all the cockroaches except for 20 lookouts to go down there and only all come out if the lookouts spotted an enemy above. Luckily they don't need to eat. I thought while seeing if all was in order. Otherwise they would quickly die out with their massive numbers.
For those thinking, how did I create this so quickly? I just removed a single chunk of stone at once to make the room and removed 10 long and skinny chunks of stone to make the tunnels. I didn't use this tactic before because that would cause my Mana to overfill by multiple times, which would not be a fun experience.
Alright. I thought with resolve. Time to continue expanding upwards. And so, I carved another hallway leading up, significantly quicker than before. Halfway through doing so, I discovered another material, Coal! Uh... Not really sure what I can use that for... Anyways, after absorbing the small coal vein (0.0001 T1 Mana per cube cm) and completing the hallway with the same dimensions as the previous one, I excavated another room.
Yep. You guessed it. The same 10 by 10 by 5 as the previous room. No new material though. It looks like I need to absorb a certain amount of a material to replicate it because I could SWEAR that I saw bits of oxidised iron. For the choice of protector in the new room... Undecided. I don't want cockroaches all over my dungeon. I mentally shuddered at the thought of having to look at them all the time.
Then I started excavated the next hallway. Yeah. The same size as the previous ones. As I was putting the finishing touches, I broke through to the surface.
I stopped what I was doing, and cleaned up the rocks that fell. Afterwards, I cleared up the entrance completely so I could have a good view of the surroundings. I extended my territory outwards and SAW.
I saw the mountain that I was in, the mountains to the left and right of me, the expansive plains in front of me with herds of furry cows that seemed to be on intense steroids. And finally, a forest just beyond the plains. A massive wood tower impaling the clouds that dared stand in its way to reaching the heavens beyond. Okayyyy. I thought in awe at the sheer size and impression it gave me. I didn't think that such a thing could be possible with it being made of wood. Just then, a green pulse shot up the spike of a tower and slammed into a cracked blue barrier that gained slightly more minuscule fracture lines. The faded green light then retreated back down the tower, presumably to try again later after gaining strength.
I looked at the tower, and then at the midday blue sky that gained a new meaning.
I am trapped in another world, aren't I?