With the third dungeon quest complete, even though I still think it wasn’t really completed, it was time for task numero quatro. Is that how it’s said? Who cares, task number four.

Weirdly enough, it wasn’t to make my first dungeon monster as I’d expect. You know, the whole bread and butter of all Dungeons? No, instead it was loot time.

Which, can I just say, real quick, is really stupid? Like, sure, I’ll have loot, but who’d going to be dropping it? You can’t have loot without mobs to drop it, System!

Anyway, loot. With Faellen’s advice still fresh in my mind, I surrendered myself to doing it less than perfectly. That is to say, I just took a little bit of my Dungeon Stone and moulded it into the rough shape of a dagger. Should be good enough, if my ’pit trap’ is.

And sure enough, I soon got the awaited notification.

Quest notification:

Quest complete!

Which meant there should be only one more quest to go, monster creation. Honestly, I was really looking forward to this one, since I don’t have any designs automatically in my Creation skill, and that seems like a pretty hard limiter.

Quest: Burgeoning Dungeon 5

You’ve almost got it! Just a bit more. With a place to host adventurers, some rudimentary defences, as well as first pieces of merchandise, your Dungeon is almost ready for the grand opening. Well, almost. See if you can remove some of the mistakes you made along the way.

Objective: Use Destruction (Dungeon)

Reward: Burgeoning Dungeon 6, ???

Sigh, I don’t know why I was hopeful. Of course the System would send me a curveball. Oh well.

But, Destruction, huh.

No matter how often I see it or how much I tell myself it isn’t, it just sounds so ominous. How much destruction are we talking about? Deconstruction? Conversion into energy? Traceless obliteration? Or maybe even straight up deleted from the universe, history included, as if it never existed in the first place? Just… there’re a lot of connotations to that word.

Well, as they say: do or die. Except that in this case even doing can result in my death, so… joy.

Also, real quick, how dare the System presume I have made any imperfections in my work so far! The impudence!

With a light mental flick I activate the ability just like all the others. My target, that awful stone dagger I was forced to make.

Just like when Creation worked its magic (wait, is it literal magic? I’ll have to investigate that later), Destruction simply caused things to happen, just in reverse compared to Creation.

Eventually, the dagger, if it can even be called that, vanished completely, leaving nought but its memory behind. Wait, no, that’s not right. There’s something right there, exactly where the dagger just was. But it’s… expanding?

It’s like a cloud of gas, but even more invisible and immaterial. And it also seems to be slowly… vanishing. Aaand, it’s gone. Somehow it went right through the walls.

“What was that!?” Faellen shrieks in my mind out of nowhere.

“Hmm?” I intelligently reply, “What was what?”

“The mana cloud! How’d you get one? I thought we were in a resource starved area!”

“Oh so that’s what it was! I was wondering.”

“Don’t change the subject,” for some reason, Faellen seemed really distressed, “How. Did. It. Get. Here.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Something about the way it said made me feel a bit creeped out, and at the same time serious. Wasn’t this a good thing? I though we were trying to fix my no-mana issue.

“Idk man, I just used my Destruction ability like the quest said.”

“Not a man, and don’t use Destruction until I say so.”

“Oookay, I guess I can do that. But will you tell me what’s got you all worked up all of a sudden? Like, this is what you’ve been thinking about this whole time, right, trying to solve?”

“No. Yes. Maybe.” It took a deep sigh, which is weird in telepathic communication, let me tell you. “Do you remember what I told you earlier, how you can’t create something out of nothing?”

“Yes. I also remember you mentioning it is possible, just at first higher levels,” I point out.

“Yes, yes, well, Dungeons have a really hard time reaching that level, because, as I said, you’re supposed to be sort of like recycling plants.” At my mental nod, it continued. “And so, tell me, what did you make that mana out of?”

“That’s simple, Dungeon Stone. I really don’t understand where you’re goi-”

“Yes, but how did you make that Dungeon Stone?” Faellen presses.

“…

With Creation.”

“And what did your ability use as fuel?”

“Oh,” is all I manage to say.

“Yes, oh.”

“Alright, but can’t we just, you know, Ignore That? Why is it bad anyway? Other than violating some prime principles of physics, of course.”

“There are a couple of reasons. What do you think anyone with even a half-decent amount of power would do if they found out about a source of infinite energy?”

“Doesn’t matter, there’s no one other than us in the whole of existence.”

“First of all, you can’t know that. Second of all, doesn’t matter. There are ways to get to you. Costly ways, but ways people will take for something like you. We’ll have to hope your little stunt didn’t put too much pressure on the time-weave. And, most importantly, third, there’s a reason only really high level people do what you just did, and it’s not because only they can.”

“Oh, oh, I can guess this one! Is it because only they can do it safely?” I ask excitedly. Look at me, being a good student and already adapting to my new circumstances.

“Precisely,” came the answer from Faellen, barely acknowledging my interruption. “So don’t do it.”

I wait a couple seconds, then a minute, then two minutes. At last, I realize there’s nothing more to come, so I break the silence.

“What, you’re not going to tell me why it’s dangerous?” I ask.

“I’m not sure I would’ve if I could’ve, but I can’t. Nobody can. Nobody knows,” Faellen’s tone is suddenly much softer, almost melancholic. “People just sort of… vanish.”

Yeah, I’m not touching that. Sounds like some personal stuff. Not for me, thank you very much!

Oh, that reminds me, my quest should be finished by now.

And indeed, it was so, which had me very excited. Mostly because this would be my first ‘proper’ reward, as well as my first unknown reward. It’ll be good to know what I can expect from my two main quests.

With just a bit of finagling I manage to open just the relevant message, without all the fluff.

Reward: Burgeoning Dungeon 6, ???

Ignoring the quest, I focus on the true star of the show.

Selecting reward.

Reward selected:

Material: Dungeon Air

Once more, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, whether to jump around from joy or mourn the loss of what could have been.