Winter came with a fresh round of troubles, the local nature spirit transitioned away from anger to indifference but mercies had yet to come. As opposed to coming under attack by creatures of flesh and blood who are easy to deal with I was instead getting ones made out of ice and snow, and that was when I was lucky. At least the Ice Mammoth's had the bloody common decency to stay down when Charles men hurl rocks at them with my catapults or Charles conjures a sea of flame to melt the bastards. But then hurricanes of ice and snow tries to brow beat us into submission, so far the only thing providing us with at least temporary relief was when Charles goes upside and snaps his fingers to convert the raging kinetic energy of the snow storm into heat. If anything it felt like the attacks had only gotten worse, so I asked Charles what he knows about it.

"The White Horn, or the Spirit of Winter isn't being overly hostile to us." Charles explained as he warmed himself next to a fire that had been prepared for the kitchen. "She's simply trampling us."

"Trample?" I asked from within my Maride body.

"Winter Tramples everything Indiscriminately, to it there's no difference between us and a bear, or birds, or the trees. It simply tramples over everything without care." Somehow that's scarier than the idea that it's holding a grudge against us.

But as long as she doesn't care that we're here, I'm going to work on another idea to try and increase mana, but it does require some idea of how mana works so to this end I gather together my experts in Apas, Charles and the Tidecaller for a meeting.

"So I know that magic can move things around, and can generate things like heat and matter, but is the opposite true? Can we turn the things you use mana to produce into mana?" The three looked at each other in confusion.

"Don't you do that already?" The Tidecaller asked suspiciously.

"Let's make a more specific example. You have lightning magic, is it possible to convert lightning back into mana?" Apas just shrugged and laid down in my lap, intending to be of no use whatsoever it would seem.

"...yes but I would rather not, on account of the fact that the process involves getting struck by lightning."

"Perfectly reasonable. But if I want to do that..."

"Sure, I'll write up a formation for it." The Stormcaller proceeded to do exactly that as I proceeded to perform diabolical finger taps.

"What are you planning?" Charles asked looking at me with blatant suspicion on his features.

"You aren't the only one that knows how to turn one thing into another." I replied smirking as well as a being with no face could smirk. "When you two are done with that I have another project that I need help with."

For the next phase of my plan I needed copper, or failing that Bronze. Unlike Iron Bronze doesn't rust, so it was common to see it used to plate things that had to be exposed to the elements a lot like the reinforcements for the ballista. Take the Bronze and divide it into base components of Copper, Tin and Aluminium. Take the copper and form a string with it and wrap it around a length of iron I made after eating one of the weapons of Charles men, insulated with a coating of lacquer, for this next part I needed the Tidecaller's help again.

"You want me to shoot lightning at it?" The confused octopus woman asked looking at the block of iron wrapped with copper I had made.

"If you please." I said using my maride body to indicate the block. Shrugging her shoulders that's exactly what the octopus woman did, chanting an incantation and letting lightning fly at the metal block.

[Super Magnet]

Success! Now I dissolve the Super Magnet and replicate it like, six or seven times, enough to line a barrel that has already been lined with obsidian and secure the lid, on the bottom of the barrel I inscribe the lightning conversion rune, I drill a hole through the lid and work on the second half of the project. I create a steel pole and line it with more obsidian. After examining various materials I determined that obsidian has no electrical conductivity so I can use it as an insulator. On the bottom I create an obsidian stopper and have braided copper wire sticking in and out of it no less than seven inches away and stick it inside. On the far end of the rod I stick a six spiked gear and have it stick out of a hole I prepared before hand. Now for the third part.

"Why the hell are we doing this in the winter!?" One of Charles stone masons complained as they worked on a well that they were building around the gear on a stick, a grove in place for the fan I had put into place.

Each blade of the fan had an engraving for converting kinetic energy into heat, albeit not all of it, just enough to keep the fan from icing up, the fan itself was connected to a 24 spiked gear, the gear set up bricked up so that the snow couldn't get in. With the howling wind the fan started to blow at a rapid pace, each rotation of the fan equalled to four in the barrel, generating 4 mana per second in the process. Then I had ten more just like them set up and I was really happy. With the giant turtle taking care of the trio's mana needs and my generators taking care of mine we should start seeing some real progress. With any luck those two should finish evolving soon and I can regain control over my dungeon. For now I popped over to the trio.

Each of them were starting to unwind from one another, trading and consuming pieces of each other's dungeons as they gradually formed new structures. Fort was sitting on top of the dungeon, forming the walls of a castle. Unlike Coral or North Fort doesn't have a material that he can manipulate into existence by freezing water or forcing coral to grow. For now he's making do by taking over the old buildings that use to belong to the Lemurians. It was... strange. I could see his... figure? The vague outline of a suit of armour in the mana that wasn't really there? Is this what it's like for Apas to look at me? Anyway. The armour was surveying a room that he claimed from the Lemurians. As I was thinking about that a familiar item floated in, a floating possessed sword, now doubly possessed as I watch the armour walk into the blade.

"Are you going to just stand there or are you going to make yourself useful?" The sword vibrated in the language I guess swords possess? I don't know.

"You seem to be having trouble deciding on something for your floor." My Maride replied in their weird mana voice on my behalf. You never notice your own habits until you see someone else repeating them.

"There's a lot of stuff here dedicated to Oceanus." The sword explained as it turned around, either facing me or facing the room, it was hard to guess the perspective of a sword.

"And?" I asked by way of reply.

"He's not exactly 'me.'" Fort stated with a shrug of his shoulders. "Not to mention that the last time we tried to strike a deal with one of your patrons we got turned down." Hard to argue with logic like that.

"Let's go find another spot to work on, save this for when you're ready for Oceanus. Instead lets go find some place suitable for the god that you're looking for. Between you guys and me?" I made a show of looking side to side as if I was planning something conspiratorial. "Oceanus is probably just waiting for you guys to make the pact with him."

"Really?" Fort somehow looked doubtful despite being a sword. "Totally. He gave me a job to make sure you three are on your way over to him." Which was factually true, but probably had more to do with him being short on dungeons than anything else. Fort dissolved a nearby book, allowing the information to enter his mind as he mused the implications. There was a shrine to Oceanus in the corner of the room but the room itself held more practical purposes than just acting as a shrine, the same was true for the entire floor. But it had been built for beings who were comfortable under water, the room shifted around, the spout that was meant to introduce water into the room at regular intervals shifted around, formed the face of a long haired god with bull horns. Murals telling the tale of Oceanus mentioned in the book was scrawled across the walls of the floor. A spear made out of coral was manifested out of thin air before something was forced into it and it started to spin around the room.

"It's... still lacking..." Fort said, feeling like there was a much needed something, something for the floor.

"BRB." I in turn replied as I popped back over to my own dungeon, and returned to the raid moments later, alongside three monsters. The Cuddlefish and the Trigger fish had been pretty useless to me up to this point, I am working to become a cooperative dungeon, they are creatures who specialise in attacks. As for the third.

[D Rank Monster Armoured Jaw Fish: An ancestor to modern fish species the blood tooth pirahna and the Iron Back Sturgeon, combining the vicious aggression of the first and the strong defensive power of the latter]

The Armoured Jawfish had just been swimming around pointlessly on the third floor serving no other purpose than a reminder that there was this vicious little creature that at some point in time split it's viciousness into two separate directions. The coral spear slashed the three monsters and their schemas dissolved away into Fort, just what he wanted: Violence.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"That's more like it." The three fish swam into existence around us, the Trigger fish already getting ready to spew some violence as Fort filled it's gullet with shards of coral, and then watched it immediately went belly up from the poisonous material that was released into the fish's gullet. "Maybe not..." Fort decided that he had a lot to work on before this floor was ready for a blessing. "I'll let you work on it."

After Fort my next stop was North, unlike Fort this fellow was properly working, the ice mammoth's that my humans had brought down and fed to the trio were now working to improve upon the environment. The Ice Mammoth's were odd creatures, bones of ice and hair made out of snow, wrapped up in a body as big as a wholly mammoth and inclined towards gorging with massive icicle tusks and firing projectiles of ice from afar from every hair on it's body. And they ate snow? Whatever works for you North.

"Need help with anything?" I asked as I approached where I saw North's Yuki Onna as she was herding the creatures around.

"We lack mobility." The ice woman stated as she looked down an ice cave.

"Isn't that what the turtle is for?" I asked pointing downwards at the creature in question.

"We're also adding several tonnes in weight to the poor creature's back just by existing, it would be nice if we could give back to it."

As I thought about it for a few moments I held up a familiar summoning circle made out of water in the air.

"If that's the case, why don't one of you summon a Maride? You'll be out in the water anyway right? With one of these moving around for the four of you should be able to move much easier." North looked surprised with my offer and froze the magic circle in question.

"Thank you for your patronage." North gave a bow before carrying off with the icy magic circle.

Now than for the last one. Unlike Fort who took the top bunk and North who positioned herself in the rear Coral had stuck herself to the underside of the turtle. Ingeniously Coral had decided to focus on Filter feeding as the path to success, her dungeon's various floors had several holes going through it that as the turtle swam forward would allow water to pass through, in theory allowing Coral to convert any particulates she came into contact with into mana. As an experiment I got Levi to suck up a huge amount of water, which gave me a lot of mana before it eventually stopped. What did I do with that mana? I'd get to that later.

"You gave Fort the fish and North the water Genie." Coral gave me a scowl of disapproval, as if telling me that I had given away the best parts out already. She was wrong of course.

"So I take it you don't want this?" Just because Treyni was locked away from me inside of a big cocoon of mana doesn't mean I couldn't make bits of her body at whim. "It's some of my Dryad's tree, and I'm betting that you can get some symbiosis boons out of it." Coral accepted the tree branch and it started to dissolve away.

"I don't think this will do me any good." Coral stated bluntly.

"The branch is a distant descendant of the Algae, a hybrid of two different organisms. Dig deep into the schema, find its distant ancestor, and give the blessing within." I handed out my bottomless wisdom like candy. "Are you on something?" No one said enlightenment was easy to understand.

"First. Make one of these." I sent Coral a schema for the Animated Skull plus core combo Graves made up for me, with some additional tweaks. Coral gave me a puzzled expression as she did what she was told and soon an animated skull fell into the hand of her mermaid body. "Next you reanimate these puppies." I dropped some Tree fossils that Charles and company dug up for me. "How am I supposed to do-?" The Skull glowed, Coral's pink mana flowed into the tree and soon it was reanimated and took root, albeit upside down. Then it did the other fossils, reanimating a group of fish. "I included amber in your animated skull, it should offer up some proficiency with plant based magic." I summoned another of Treyni's branches. "Give him the task of integrating this branch with your algae and you'll have a higher chance of getting Castor/Pollux's blessing."

Satisfied I went to check on progress for my own mana intensive project. Charles men dug out a storage area on the fourth floor that I've been slowly filling with the pieces of a prefabricated city, manufactured in the third floor's dry room and brought into the fourth from inside of a air tight container. Once the snow goes away and spring comes we can just use an elevator to carry these to the site of the city, create a foundation with the solve all earth magic and snap these puppies together. Isn't this a huge waste of mana? Isn't there better things that I can be doing with this like finishing the evolution of my first two floors or fixing my core? Truthfully I would like to be doing those things too but I can't. I tried speeding up the evolution already but it wasn't working, and I'm not willing to start shoving extra material into my core and risk making the cracks any worse. So I am going to take the excess mana that I am working hard to create and I'm going to get the first buildings thrown up in the spring. What buildings am I going to get put together you may wonder?

"An Airport?" Charles room was looking more like a war room these days, even then it was actually a city planning room, one where we were getting all our ideas for the city settled out.

"When Spring does get here you said that among the first arrivals are going to be the guilds correct?" Charles nodded his head.

"Money leaves behind it's own aroma, to some people it's irresistible." I nodded my head in agreement.

Adventurers, Craftsmen and Merchants. Adventurers go into the dungeons and collect material such as ores, lumber and monster bits, Craftsmen is a catch all term for people who convert materials into usable items such as weapons, armour, building pieces, potions, enchanted accessories and food, Merchants then buy and sell these materials and finished products on the open market. There are other organisations such as the Item Bag Banks that Charles talked about before or the Mages Association who conducts research using materials from the dungeons but these three are the big ones we have to work with.

"The Adventurers will come to the dungeon, the craftsmen will come to the adventurers, the merchants will stick their noses anywhere that business is being done."

"Precisely. Which is why we need to prepare priority space and buildings for when they do, inevitably, get here." A diorama of the area around my dungeon had been mocked up off to the side, useful for more three dimensional planning for the dungeon. "Once work is finished in the underwater district we can use it as a foundation for an elevated platform to be built right in front of my entrance." I went over to a nearby table where various theoretical buildings and length's of wood were being kept, I don't know who among Charles forces keep making these things but I'm glad they're on our side, that or they just have lots of raw material to work with and way too much free time while snowed in. "If we can set up a toll station then we can start earning capital to establish other areas of importance." If people were going to start bringing money into this then we were going to make sure to have some. "After that is a trio of buildings of the Adventurer's Guild, the Craftsmen Guild and the Merchants Guild. We can tack them onto the side of the mountain." Why were they all close together and getting second priority? Convenience. The People who gather from the dungeon is next to the dungeon, the people who make things using material from the dungeon is next to the gatherers, and the people who sell stuff that gets made is next to the craftsmen.

"I understand all of that, but what is this about an 'airport?'" Charles asked as I started to assemble the buildings on the diorama. "That depends on our ability to get our hands on flying monsters, lots of them." I said as I rubbed my fingers together, eager with anticipation. "Flying monsters are the most convenient for transportation, as long as they're not picking fights then you can fly over all obstacles in your path without worry. If we pair these skeletons with the jellyfish-" Charles grabbed my watery body and pulled it closer to him with a absolutely murderous glint in his eyes as he stared me down.

"What did I tell you about using those things!?" Ah right. Weapons of mass destruction do not make for good courier bags.

"How do you guys do mass shipping anyway. I know that I can just send stuff to other places through the dungeon network but..." Charles cocked a brow suspiciously.

"Airport? Mass shipping? You have a lot of strange terms. How long were you alone before Apas found you?"

"I... it hasn't been that long. A couple of days at most, a couple of weeks before I met you." A pause as I slowly mused the implications. "Am I from this world?" I explained the terms that had triggered my... episodes in the past, the episodes that I had saw when I had them.

"I've certainly never heard of something like an aquarium before. Do you eat the fish in it?" Charles was a nobleman, if there was anyone who would buy or own an aquarium he would probably be pretty high up there.

"I... don't think so. They're too small to be filling." The more I thought about it the less I understood. "Charles. Do you think I come from a different world? My consciousness I mean." Charles made a frown, musing the implications in his mind. "Among the strongest dungeons there if a phenomena of 'breaching' by concentrating the divine power of dozens of blessings into a single floor and use that to thin the barriers between worlds, and in the process expanding into another world." Charles stated leaning over the table and musing the implications.

"...so it is possible?" I asked, and I saw Charles nod his head, on his face was a look that I imagined that I would have if my face wasn't just this blank slate. I heard a loud snap inside of my head, my core!

***"Heroes! Please save our world!" I shoved a handful of popcorn into my mouth as I watched the group of confused young men on the TV gradually coming to terms with the reality of their situation. I've heard good things about the latest round of Isekai to***

While Keeper was suffering another mental break down his core had jumped, a sharp mass of mana suddenly forming in one of the cracks of the core sealing it, though in reality it would be considered more a crude patch job than the gradual fill that was leaving a smooth surface. Then the entire mountain started to shake.

----------------------------------------

Outside the blizzard had yet to cease, the Queen of Winter, now resembling a heavily pregnant elk like Centaur, that was the fourth seasonal form of the local nature spirit having grown in intensity. Snow Mammoth's and other frosty entities formed in the raging snow, some going to continue their attack on the young dungeon, others off to rampage in somewhere else. Remembering the grudge from the previous forms didn't mean that the snow spirit held one, it was a simple matter that much like the monsters formed in the snow the cocoon of evolution surrounding the dungeon, hungry for the mana and the promise of power within. The mountain shook, hunks of limestone the size of a carriage blown off and crashing into the surrounding area as something started to come out. A herd of Snow Mammoth's that couldn't move in time were crushed as one of the larger masses from the mountain slammed down on top of it.

A finger, longer than the Mammoth's from tip to tip, tapped several times giving off the impression of being... annoyed. That was the feeling that they had gotten, as the resident nature spirit they had a certain measure of respect from the masses, but to this thing? They were pests. The Queen of Winter bore a hasty retreat as one of the Mammoth's were dragged, a loud crunch like eating ice soon echoed out, the owner of the hand that just made off with the Mastodon enjoying a meal. But the hand was the least of their concerns, from the mountain the screeching of dozens of different insects howled out while scything through the lands going in all directions, not even the water was safe from these horrors. At least it wasn't until the Island turtle poked it's head out of the water and roared in annoyance, the insects immediately turned around to retreat back through the land. The Turtle looked up at the top of the mountain, the glowing eyes of a monster staring back at it.