I take a look around my cave, noticing that the insects seemed to be in almost the same place I had last seen. It would seem being in the tutorial slowed time down quite a bit, but did not stop it completely. I thought about if I could possibly abuse this, but realized that if what the System had told me was true, about the true God writing rules, than probably not. I was determined to surpass the expectations the System seemed to have of my intelligence. I noticed at the corner of my vision, a weird concept with 360 degree vision, a small notice. Taking another second to check my surrounding again I open it.
Please Choose Your Resource Nodes
Plant:
Basic cave Plant:
Cave Moss
Random
Plant
Metal:
Basic metal:
Copper
Random Metal Node
Rare:
Mana Pool
Random Rare Node
Looking at the choices given it would seem that the first choice of the plant node was based on my location. Obviously this was given to me due to my “spawn” location of a cave. The things is I already had natural access to this and felt I could use my skill of Mana Integration to consume and copy the template of the moss already here. This made the choice pretty simple, though I hoped that even though it was random it would not screw me over and give me a plant that needed special conditions to live that I currently could not recreate.
The metal choice was pretty obvious, Copper being one of the easier metals in most RPG or game like situations. Whether it was following the rules of Earth I had yet to figure out, for all I know it could be a relatively rare or not used metal here. But it had plenty of uses when you knew what to do. Unfortunately I was no expert in the last life I had, thus I would be taking it for the simple fact that melting it down and using it for something shouldn’t be too hard. I knew copper had a low melting point, but once again I only knew the bare basics, and would have to trial and error with it. Though maybe using Mana Forming and Mana Integration would be possible.
Switching over to the Rare choice, I skimmed over Mana Pool. As I did so a small explanation popped up.
Mana Pool
Mana Pools are used to store raw Mana in a liquid form, allowing the Core to collect more Mana than would be normal as well as allowing it to be used in the creation of templates.
Can be upgraded
After reading that I realized that I could also skim over the other options, though the plant and metal were much simpler.
Cave Moss
Cave moss is found in most caves and is a source of food for insects.
Can Evolve
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Copper
Copper is a base metal, used for the most basic items like household tableware.
Can be alloyed or mana soaked
I already figured taking a random plant would be best, though finding out I could evolve moss was an interesting tidbit. The copper was as I thought, just a basic metal. Though I knew copper was used for several harder alloys such as bronze or brass, mana soaking was obviously a new part of this world’s rules. Looking at the Mana Pool again made me wonder if I would have access to magic metal pretty early on if I chose this, or would it require more than I would have access to at this point.
Either way I had made my choice already. Having access to moss on the walls already made it easy to choose on the Plant resource node. I figured having copper would probably be best, as I instinctively knew I had the mana to form it. With that thought, I realized that even if I had chosen a random metal node and had gotten something amazing, I may not have had the mana needed to create it and screwed myself over before I began.
Looking at the rare resource node choice I figured a Mana Pool would be the better option. Once again I instinctively knew I could create the Mana Pool with my current mana. Not only that but it was obvious the first choices of all the nodes were catered to me, whether it was current location or Mana capabilities. I may not get the bonus for challenging myself, but why risk it here in the beginning. I would always have more chances later in my new life to challenge myself was I was more settled.
But before I actually selected those choices I looked at the other notification still hidden. Focusing on it opened it up next to my current choices.
Choose your monster template
Slime
Weak - Base
Golem
Basic - Common
Elemental*
Basic - Uncommon
Formless
N\A - Unique
Looking at the choices I decided to skim over the rankings first. Looking at them gave me a base idea on how things are ranked, the first being the challenge level and the second a rarity level. The challenge level let me know what I could expect for experience and level gains. It did not affect the leveling of the creature itself, just that the easier it is to control or create, the lower the amount of experience I gained. The rarity just showed how rare an item or creature would be. Knowing this I looked over at the slime to get a base explanation.
Slime
A base monster found literally everywhere, it is a creature with no intelligence. Slimes are gel-like balls surrounding a core that use a slightly acidic body to melt anything it rolls over. As such they are easily created by dungeons as well as tamed by sapient species.
Chances to Evolve - High
I notice the chances to evolve at the bottom and skimmed it. Basically it broke down to how easily and how commonly a creature could evolve. Slimes may be weak in its base form, but the high chances to evolve actually made them quite popular. Feed a slime enough of something and there was a good chance it would evolve to include an aspect of it. This included things like acid or even more importantly medicinal items. But the ratings were only for the base creature, not its evolutions, thus making it a little tricky. Slimes were weak, but a slime that was consuming high density mana could evolve to a mage-slime. But it could also just evolve into a big slime, making its evolutions very tricky to follow or control.
Seeing this I looked at the rankings for the golem and elemental. Doing so gave me a list of said rankings.
Starting with Challenge levels it went: Weak, Basic, Average, Tough, Hard, Challenging, Cruel, and finally Near-Impossible. There was an extra one labeled N\A, but from what I gathered it meant I was either completely screwed over or had no chance or it was even the system had no rank for it. This either meant that it was even above the system, like the true God, or so low the system couldn’t be bothered. Most small insects or things of that nature would fall under this category.
The rankings for Rarity went: Base, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Ultra-Rare, Legendary, Mythic, and Legendary-Mythic. Once again there was an extra tier labeled Unique, basically saying either one of a kind or just relatively so rare it did not fall under any other rank.
Finally I looked at Formless.
Formless
Formless is the unique ability the System gives to you. This choice will allow you to create and form monster templates of your own choosing, based on your Will, Mana, and Imagination. You will be given the base knowledge on how to create monsters with what is needed to survive, but their forms will be of your own choosing.
Beware Mana costs and Will usage, as overusing either could lead to fatal consequences!
After figuring this out my choice was made. I saw the asterisk next to elemental, skimming to see it was there to inform me I would only have access to one random element. But it didn’t matter to me anyway as I knew what I wanted. The whole reason I chose to become a Dungeon Core was for one reason. And only one of these options would let me become what I wanted. I knew I could have more choices later, but if I was going to do this I wanted to do it from the ground up. I had always loved mythology in my past life, and fantasy based stories, games, and movies were all my top choices in their respective genre.
I wanted to be a Dungeon Core for one reason: to bring the Mythical creatures I loved to read, fight, and learn about to life. It was time to create the Dungeon of Mythics, or an even better name Dungeon Mythos!