How does a newborn initiate to the System mess up this badly?
Nick couldn't tell where this male voice was coming from. It sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once. It didn't sound like the system's usual voice though. He could once again see nothing but darkness around him. It was just like when he had first entered this new world, with a System screen that seemed to be talking to him, which made the surrounding darkness even more unnerving.
"Who are you?" asked Nick curiously. Never before had he seen or heard anything except for the System say something through a screen.
Wait, you can talk? Aren't you just a few hours old?
The voice sounded confused at Nick's question. "Yeah, but I was Isekaied from another world. Can you send me back?" Nick saw no reason to hide his status as someone from another world to what appeared to be a powerful entity in the System. It could potentially be another being like the goddess who sent him here, but with the power to send him back. The goddess had referred to something called the Gods Game, and Nick doubted that it was single player.
Iseka- oh, wow Auto-Translate had a field day with that. Who even makes up a word for something like that? Wait, you irritated the god that summoned you? A wisdom of 5 seems accurate.
Nick sighed mentally. This man(or god or whatever he was) seemed to be just as fickle as the goddess. He seemed to be getting information from somewhere, probably the System. Luckily, he remembered Nick's original question again and answered it.
I'm the System Administrator that was called to fix the problem you've made. I have half a mind to just kill you and be done with this whole fiasco already, since anything involving the gods is generally above my pay grade," he replied somberly. "But luckily for you, I'm quite irritated with Lorentia. Like seriously, this is her fourteenth breach of the Code this century!
Nick took a moment to process the wealth of information that the System Admin had provided. "So the System has admins, and that gold woman is a god. I'm fairly certain she's the 'Lorentia' that the Admin is talking about, and she's not the only god. The Admin's irritation with her is apparently the only thing keeping me alive," he thought to himself. He was just about to ask the Admin another question when the Admin interrupted him again.
Yeah pretty much. So you tried to make a golem with you as its core so that you could leave the farm. It was honestly a good plan, but you were just missing some crucial information.
"Is there anyone who can't read my mind these days? And what's the crucial information I was missing?"
Yes, and I can't tell you.
The System Admin seemed to be completely missing the sarcasm in his tone, but Nick immediately shut off that train of thought before the Admin could pick up on it.
I'm going to resurrect you, and you'll end up in the golem you made. It was a System Error that was going to happen anyways, and this seems more likely to result in something interesting than banning it from happening. You'll probably die before the Balancing Force notices you anyways. This will be hilarious. And by the way, I noticed the sarcasm.
"Wait resurrect? So I died again?" Nick was just about to say something when he once again felt the same migraine-like pain that had preceded him breaking the System.
. . .
The feeling began to fade after what felt like eternity to Nick. He felt groggy, as if he had woken up without much sleep. In his immediate surroundings, he could see absolutely nothing but his system screen. It was as if he was back in the system tutorial and cut off from the world.
When he sent his perception forwards, he realized that the Admin hadn't lied. He was in the golem. It resembled a basic stick figure, just with jointed limbs. His core was located in the exact center of the thin chest of the golem, so he used mentally moved himself to the right arm of the golem with Golem Modification. After all, what kind of idiot would place their weak points in their head or chest?
He mentally pulled up the System screen to see what had occurred and winced at what he saw.
Congratulations: you have created Basic Dirt Golem(ERROR Core).
ERROR: Dungeon Core etheric connection to Dungeon Core unusable.
Searching for precedent…
Precedent found: Dungeon Core(used) experience given to Dungeon Core(user). Dungeon Core(used) transfigured to equivalent material.
ERROR: Dungeon Core(user) cannot absorb experience.
Reason: Dungeon Core(user) is deceased.
ERROR: Monster Creation unavailable to deceased Dungeon Cores.
ERROR: Deceased Dungeon Core used Monster Creation.
ERROR: Monster Creation unavailable to deceased Dungeon Cores.
ERROR: Deceased Dungeon Core used Monster Creation.
Infinite Loop Detected: System Administrator Alerted.
Admin Resolution: Dungeon Core Resurrected.
Etheric Connection between Dungeon Core(user) and Dungeon Core(used) eliminated.
Direct Dungeon Core to Monster Etheric Connection Established.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Future instances will be resolved similarly if no previous Monsters exist.
Congratulations: You have used: Golem Modification.
You have earned Experience!
Would you like to establish your Dungeon here?
He shivered as he thought about what had just happened to him. "Hey Admin. If you're listening, thanks," he said, before remembering that he still couldn't speak or listen verbally.
"Wait you're back? Noooooooo, I thought I was free," said Luna sadly. How are you even alive? I saw your core die. Wait, Admin? You're telling me that you met an Admin!"
"Yeah," he responded simply, confused at her reaction. "He Resurrected me."
"Of course this happens to me… I thought I'd gotten lucky with only a short stay in this mortal plane but of course an Admin uses a 10th tier spell to Resurrect you for no reason whatsoever."
"What do you mean by a 10th tier spell?"
"It's not important right now."
Mentally shrugging, Nick waited a while longer for the rest of his headache to fade, then set out to explore the cavern for a way out. His control over the golem seemed to be significantly better than it was before. There were various kinds of monsters around the other cores, including red salamanders that occasionally breathed out smoke, blue snakes that seemed to do nothing at all, and even another Golem Dungeon with another golem standing next to the core.
"Their golem making skills aren't any better than mine, if anything they're worse," thought Nick smugly.
"No Dungeon Core here except for yourself is sapient," replied Luna absentmindedly. " Right now, they're barely sentient, although they get smarter as they age. In other words, you've beaten someone that's barely the equivalent of a newborn."
Ignoring her, Nick noted how none of the other monsters could get more than about 5 meters away from their cores, but this wasn't a problem for Nick since he was moving with his golem. None of the cores were less than 10 meters apart, so there had been no real interaction between the cores.
Even Nick and his golem body were unable to come close to the other cores. They seemed to hit an invisible sphere around each core that no other dungeon core could enter. Nick's mental perception could look into the domains of the other cores, but he couldn't figure out how to actually interact with them. He was observing a strange mist-covered core when he felt a spike of panic pass through his mental connection with Luna.
"Hide," she commanded, before following her own advice and sticking to the cavern wall, her dark fur making her nearly invisible. Nick, realizing her serious tone, followed her advice and hid his golem behind a large rock near where Luna hid.
"Why exactly are we hiding?" he asked her.
"I heard voices in Cirilian, the primary language here. I doubt it was from the cores, and it's been about a day since you were born. In other words, the harvesters are here. You can use your perception though, it is completely unnoticeable," she replied.
Nick mentally put hearing above talking verbally on his to-do list, and waited for the 'harvesters' as Luna had dubbed them to enter his perception range. It was almost twice as large as when he had first used it. He was fairly certain that it had leveled up, but he hadn't had the opportunity to check it.
Suddenly, a small section of his perception was cut off from his mental sight. Nick was fairly certain that this blind spot was at the location of a large boulder that was stuck against the cavern wall. Due to how his perception worked, he had no way of knowing what was happening in this blind spot, but Luna did.
"Hey Luna, what's happening over there? How'd they block my perception?" he thought towards her.
"It's four human men carrying a large sphere that I don't think I've seen before, although- wait, say absolutely nothing until I tell you you can speak."
Confused by her reaction but realizing her seriousness, Nick waited patiently while trying to figure out what was happening.
"We're not verbally speaking, but maybe that sphere she was talking about can also pick up on whatever mental communication we can use?" he thought. The 'blind spot' began to move across his perception before eventually leaving it in the opposite direction. He still wasn't able to see anything along the path of the object, although the path seemed to be getting clearer every second. About a minute after that, Luna let out a mental sigh, before resuming her earlier explanation.
"That was a device made specifically to hunt down dungeon cores. It uses the mental waves they give off when talking to their Guides to locate them. I don't know how they got in here. I don't think they would risk using Teleport…"
As the mental fog on his perception slowly lifted, Nick realized something important. "The boulder's been moved to the side. I think there might be a passageway behind it, and that's where they came from. Luna, can you check?"
Luna moved from where she had remained immobile for a while and stealthily walked over to the original location of the 'blind spot.'
"You're right," she reported. "There's some kind of passageway here that was hidden by the boulder. There's a bend and I can't see what's after it. I don't know if we should check it out, it could just be a dead end and the harvesters could find us."
Promptly ignoring her advice, Nick got up and slowly walked over to the tunnel. He would have just used Luna as a test subject, but Luna couldn't go very far from him.
As he stood at the entrance, he noticed the perfectly smoothened walls. It was unlikely to be naturally-formed, so Nick assumed that he was on the right track.
"Let's go, Luna," he said before walking forward into the mysterious passageway.
The bend that Luna was talking about soon appeared in Nick's rather limited perception range, and he turned the corner to find… more of the same. Nick sighed, and resumed walking.
Half an hour later, Nick was still slowly trodding through the tunnel, yet it seemed to be never ending. Suddenly, Luna paused behind him. "It's getting lighter!" she exclaimed mentally. "I think that we're near the end."
As a dungeon core, Nick couldn't get tired unless his mana ran out, and running a single golem took almost none of his mana, so he had effectively infinite stamina. However, he was not immune to boredom, and walking in a tunnel that always looked the same to his perception had been wearing on him. With a mental flex, he increased the amount of mana that he was sending to his golem, speeding it up until it was almost as fast as an average walking pace. Any faster, and parts of the golem began to fall out.
While he couldn't see most of it, Nick's perception allowed him to sense that the tunnel was gradually getting wider. Until suddenly, the walls fell away into open space. Finally, they were free!
Nick sped up and sprinted for the exit, excited to finally be back outside and away from these claustrophobic conditions… only to stumble and fall as one of his golem's legs fell off. Luna laughed off to the side as Nick cursed.
Your Golem has suffered dismemberment. It has lost a portion of its health points. Both its limb and its hp will slowly regenerate over the next hour.
Would you like to establish your Dungeon here?
Crawling the last few feet, Nick finally reached the mouth of the cave. His perception suddenly expanded again, probably due to a level up in his skill, and he was made aware of a forest that began a few meters(not yards, meters) away. There was a path through the forest leading straight forwards that he completely disregarded as a topic for him to concern himself with later.
Sighing, he once again resumed crawling, and made it several meters inside the treeline before freezing as Luna, who has been following him this entire time, alerted him again.
"The men are back. And they've got… Oh Lorentia, those are harvested dungeon cores! Dozens of them at the very least in a cart," she thought towards him frantically.
Suddenly, the men paused, at the section of the path closest to where Nick and Luna were hiding.
"That's weird. The Harvester is picking up on another dungeon core. I think one of the cores is still alive. Glen, can you check?" asked one of the men.
While Nick couldn't hear or understand any of what they were saying, Luna was listening with bated breath as one of the men who hadn't spoken put his hand above the cart. A thick green mist began to fall from his hand, covering the dungeon cores.
"The signature's faded now, you can stop." The men resumed walking along the path, and Luna let out an audible sigh of relief before explaining what had just happened to Nick.
"For someone who was celebrating my supposed death you definitely seem to be very invested in keeping me alive," he remarked. His inability to verbally communicate in any way meant that learning Cirilian, the local language, was useless. He mentally pulled up his status to see how he had changed so far.
Name: Unknown
Species: Dungeon Core(Tiny)
Status Effects: None
Class: Golem Dungeon
Level: 1
Health: 10
Stamina: Infinite
Mana: 470
Attributes: (Click to minimize)
Vitality: 1(max)
Strength: 0(max)
Endurance: Infinite(max)
Agility: 0(max)
Dexterity: 0(max)
Perception: Infinite(max)
Intelligence: 47
Wisdom: 5
Charisma: 3
Willpower: 7
Precision(Special): 2
Free Attribute Points: 10
Class Skills:
Material Creation: 2
Golem Creation: 2
Golem Modification: 2
Golem Modification: 2
Golem Control: 5
Golem Core Desynchronization: 1
Copy: 1
Beginner Magic Understanding: 1
General Skills:
Speed reading: 47
Quick Thinking: 39
Physics: 34
Dark humor: 31
Quantum Physics: 27
Programing(General): 26
Origami: 24
4802 more, click to expand
New General Skills:
Inspect
Talking to Sentient Cats
Isekai Acclimation
Fantasy Acclimation
Magic Acclimation
Thought-Speak
Mental 3-D Modeling
"Hmm, So it's called thought-speaking. My perception rose, but none of my other attributes did. Charisma is still a 2, so based off of Occam's Razor, the System is obviously wrong and that stat is broken so I'll stay away from it for now. System, put 10 of my free points into Intelligence," he thought-spoke.
10 Free Attribute Points have been added to Intelligence.
"Alright," thought-spoke Nick as he turned towards Luna. "What are we supposed to do now?"
"No idea whatsoever, I didn't really think that we'd make it this far."
Nick sighed, and began the arduously long process of waiting for his leg to regenerate.