The voice seemed to be all around me, but did not echo off the grey walls. No new table popped up, instead it felt more like sitting in a classroom receiving a lecture from a teacher or professor. In fact a white board popped up on the wall I was focusing on and began to write out the words I was hearing.
As a new dungeon core your job is to survive and grow. In order to do so you will need to learn how to create floors for your dungeon, form monsters, grow and use resource nodes, and how to form a Voice or Avatar for you to move your Core around with. Most dungeon cores when they gain consciousness feel an instinctive fear of the light and immediately begin digging. This is only natural as the outside world has many creatures who would love to take or devour your core in order to strengthen themselves.
Dungeon Cores are natural phenomenon of your new world and are coveted by both sapient and non-sapient creatures alike. Non-sapient creatures see you for your mana and hope to consume you to either boost their own power or use you to create a mana core of their own. Sapient creature also gain a boost in power from using your core, but many see you for your ability to create rare resources. If a sapient creature was to reach your core and overpower your mana and will, they would be able to control you, until either you grow strong enough to break free, or more likely are destroyed.
The issue with these new dungeon cores is that after feeling this instinctive fear they begin to dig straight down. Now your Core will naturally stay where you were born unless you will yourself to move. Unfortunately until you form your Voice/Avatar you will move at a very slow pace. Now when you are not moving your Core forms a type of shield around you, stopping smaller and weaker life forms from reaching you. But that shield is unable to stay up as you move, allowing those small creatures and insects to not only be able to reach you, but also notice you more as you move the mana around you. This is usually the cause of death for many new cores, luckily you are not only a new core, but a sapient new core.
The difference is that when you came to being you already had a minor amount of intelligence, compared to most cores that are born with only natural instincts.
The words stopped as I mentally scowled at the blatant call out of minor intelligence. I understand that I may not have been the smartest of people in my last life, with the many poor life choices I had made, but this seemed to be an intentional slight at me. Was this system making fun of me or had it been just the programmed set of words for this tutorial? As I focused on the board again, it continued where it had left off.
Since you have a base intelligence you were able to control your natural instincts. This gave you access to the tutorial earlier than many, which should help with your chances in surviving. You also showed a flash of extreme intelligence in selecting to use the tutorial, as many just bypass it.
Seeing the once more blatant call out of my intelligence led me to believe the system was not pre-programmed and was actually insulting me
We apologize for any feelings of insecurity we may be giving the Dungeon Core, we mean no offence when we mention how low your intelligence is. Many choose to ignore the tutorial in order to try and figure out loopholes or in order to challenge themselves for higher gain. Unfortunately for them the rules of this world are were written by a true God and thus are perfect. Also, though challenging oneself does indeed allow for better gains in stats and experience, choosing to bypass a tutorial meant to help is seen as foolhardy and thus is seen as a deterrent. This means that those who purposely skip the tutorial are instead given the challenges they seek, but get no extra gains from said challenges and are rewarded the normal amount of experience anyone would get.
Hearing this made me glad I chose the tutorial, showing me that sometimes taking a little extra time and learning how to do something is rewarding in its own way. But once again the call-out in the first sentence confirms to me that this was not just some preprogrammed system message, but one specifically catered to me by a sapient like being.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Continuing on, Dungeon Cores are sought out by all creatures and as such are given more power than many at the early stages of life. This includes access to specific skills most creatures need to learn themselves from others or in nature. These skill include Mana Control, Mana Vortex, Mana Integration, and Mana Forming.
Mana Control is quite self-explanatory, a skill that allows you to more freely control the man around you and within you.
Mana Vortex allows you to spin your internal Mana in order to suck in Mana from the outside. Many creatures tend to use Meditation to do something similar. The difference being that while they absorb Mana relatively slowly and cannot move, Mana Vortex absorbs at a much higher and faster rate and can be learned to use on the move. Unfortunately Mana Vortex cannot be upgraded like Meditation and though you can move, any vigorous activity like fighting will cancel the skill.
Mana Integration allows you to take your Mana and incorporate it into your surroundings. This allows you to form your Dungeon floors as you will, making it a part of your “Body” so to speak. Using this is what will allow you to form a floor as you wish, including changing the very nature of the walls and floors as you please. We will go over this at a later date, as this tutorial is only to explain what it is.
Finally Mana Forming is to take your Mana and form it to your Will. Unlike Mana Integration that absorbs into items around you, Mana Forming is taking raw Mana and making something out of it. Much like molding clay you will mold the Mana with your Will and Imagination to form things you have seen or know of.
As I read and listen to the Voice, I realize that the knowledge of my past life may help or hinder me more, depending on the situation. It would help as it allows me to maybe use Mana Forming to create things that I may not have seen before earlier than I should. But in reverse, what I know could also hinder me since this world most likely does not work in the same way as my previous one. What may be true in my old world could be completely different here and could cause something to not work correctly. But thinking that, I push it to the back of my mind in order to gleam more from the Voice.
Though at the beginning We mentioned we would go ever several items, in order not to completely overload your min- “ahem” intelligence we will only go over the basic you need for immediate survival.
I squint at the change of wording but ignore it.
When you return to your body you will be given options on the template monster of your choice. You would normally only have three, but your unique situation has allowed Us to give you a fourth option. Know that by taking this option you will be challenging yourself more than most, but will also be rewarded for doing so. Also as reward for following along this tutorial you will be give the basic templates for your first resource nodes.
Resource nodes are used for you to produce specific resources. These allow you to either upgrade your dungeon or your monsters. The base resource nodes are separated into categories such as plant, metal, or even Mana. You will be given only templates to a Plant of your choice, Metal of your choice, and one Rare resource choice. The Rare resource will be limited to a choice few in order to be fair.
Please look over your skills for the base explanation when you return. They should be instinctive to use; allowing use of them immediately. Know that certain skills can be evolved into higher tiers as you use them. Some skills grow just by using them, while others grow faster if you find more unique ways to use them. We recommend taking time to practice their use and seeing how they will help you.
Once again thank you for selecting to use the tutorial and we hope to see you again!
With that last sentence I am once more greeted with pure white before finding myself inside my little cave.