Pete's minor meltdown over the revealing of his name Xavier finally got started in the creation of his dungeon.

Xavier POV

Now that I know the basics of dungeon building, I am deciding on a design. Currently I am 50 meters away from the surface with plenty of space to expend into the mountain and as I have no wish to be discovered yet I will dig into the mountain. However, I first must add all of the surrounding stone to my domain. After 3 days of continuous infiltration I have finally expanded my domain 350 meters in every direction, except the direction doing to the surface. In my mind that is sufficient for my construction in the near future, and so begin to dig and as I dig this hallway going into the mountain, I notice system notifications piling up.

System Notification: You have found Iron, aluminum, & tin

I was not told about any of this, so I ask Pete, “What’s with the notifications about me finding materials."

"By discovering new materials, you can learn to recreate them, however the more complex a material the harder it is to produce. For example, normal wood and stone are some of the most basic materials out there which is why you can already recreate stone. Most dungeons can understand these materials subconsciously. But when you get to Mithril, Ebony, and other complex materials it is extremely difficult to produce and more often than not you will have to spend days to months understanding the nuances of the materials."

"Wow information that actually makes sense and applies to me currently, thanks" after figuring that mystery out I continued to mine for all eternity.

Third Person POV

Xavier first makes a tunnel/hallway that goes about 5 meters into the mountain, where he then splits the hallway off into opposite directions, so that it looks like a '"T". These two opposing hallways go about 15 meters before he creates a room for both where he gets another system Notification.

System Notification: You have two rooms that can now be inhabited by monsters, to find monsters go to your species selection menu.

In Xavier's mind beasts are not yet needed as he is still locked away from the outside world, so he continues to build. Each of these rooms gets another hallway that goes in the direction of the surface. He continues these new hallways for 20 meters before creating another room at the end of each and now he has a massive headache. As he looks to the bottom of his HUD, he sees a blinking blue bar and realizes the culprit of his headache.

"What the fuck Pete I thought you said I get mana as I mine and absorb the stone."

"You do but stone is very weak in mana, if you were mining through forest of mana crystal trees you would have a surplus because it is rich in mana. However, as stone is very weak in mana all it does it slow the depletion, now you just have to wait for it to refill."

"and how long will that take?"

"Go to your menu and look above where it says the amount of mana you have what does it say"

"it says 100M/H"

"Then it's simple, you need 15 hours to fully replenish and while you can keep mining during that time it is not efficient. After completely depleting your mana down to 0 for some reason it gets hard to control until it is reset by a full charge. This is also why I recommend only ever going down to 1 mana as this is one major drawback to dungeons. Building during this time will take roughly 2.5x the amount of mana it would usually take."

"Okay so what should I do during this time?"

"Read this it explains the world of dungeons and the world of magic in general."

And so, Xavier begins reading where he realizes that this might not be a complete waste of time

How Dungeons Came To be

Dungeons have been around for 12 million years but even before that there was magic. This magic, or mana as it is now called was originally generated by Gaia. However, this mana is not the same as it is today, it was crude and filled with impurities, anything touched by it for an extended period of time would die. As the creatures were killed, Gaia went into despair wondering how she could stop the eradication of all living things, that was the moment the idea of dungeons was conceived. Gaia was in a rush, so she quickly realized her idea; she created the first dungeon from a beast core of a phoenix and fed all her mana into it thus creating the first dungeon Ra, the ancestor of all dungeons. Dungeons purify and release mana into the world and after Ra was created, he sought company. And so, he created other dungeons, but all of these dungeons were quickly destroyed by the creatures of this world because they sought the dungeon cores and the power given from consuming them. After the loss of his friends, Ra pleaded with Gaia for protection and she answered. She would not allow them to rely on her but their own power, and from that power they could create beast, undead, spirits, any and all manner of living things to protect themselves. And so, dungeon cores adapted and overcame those obstacles. With this new and purified mana many species rose to power including many beast kings and the first sentients. Through these many millions of years dungeons learned that if something died in their dungeon, they would take all power from that body and learn how to create that being as well as any items that were on these bodies. But beasts had gotten smarter as well and because many of the dungeons were, in their view, unbeatable these beasts would no longer enter these dungeons; and so, dungeons came up with the idea of incentives or "loot” as sentients call it. And now dungeons could create creatures to protect themselves and loot to attract people and beast, as sentient kingdoms were made some kings sought the true power of a dungeon core and sent their armies into a dungeon to take the core, but many kingdoms did not. This is because while a core offers a massive boost in power that person is not immortal, and many dungeons produce rare commodities, so the economic benefits outweigh the advantages of a core. However, there are many greedy people out there who do not look to improve their kingdoms but themselves, this is another reason why dungeons are recommended to make their core rooms as undefeatable as possible. Also, don't get the misconception that only beasts are turned into dungeons all beings are taken from the living or dead to be turned into dungeons. After being turned into dungeons these beings will be given new instincts that allow them to kill and do all things dungeons do without guilt.

In the common era cores are protected by kingdoms because of their economic value and anybody who takes or destroys core will be hunted down mercilessly and executed. But of course, there are exceptions, if a core does not provide any economic benefits and if it kills all who enter a crusade will be organized and the dungeon will be destroyed. Gaia gains power from the creatures that live on the planet and as those populations rose more dungeons were created. Areas around dungeons are extremely mana rich and almost every core has a city built around it, these people gain benefits, almost all extremely powerful people were born in one of these cities, so as you can imagine dungeons are very coveted to a kingdom and are able to elevate a kingdom to an empire if used properly. In conclusion, all dungeons should strive to be dangerous enough but not overly so, they should also provide loot worthy of the actions done, no more no less. Hopefully by doing this your core will flourish and live forever.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

After reading that my brain hurt but it seemed as though Pete was not dome torturing me yet as he quickly handed me another book.

The History of the Adventurers Association

Around 2500 years after the sentient kingdoms came to dominance (4,231,500 AD (after dungeons)) the Adventurers Association was created, commonly called the Adventurers Guild. This was a place where sentients could find other sentients and go on adventures or dungeon dives. And with this creation ranking systems were put into place. These rankings are H,F,E,D,C,B,A,S,SS,SSS,G, and in theory TG all beings are ranked this way. The rankings for dungeons are quite simple until you get to B, before B each floor is a new grade, so 1 floor is F, 2 floors is E and so on but at B rank a dungeon must have started to master at least one law of the world like fire, water, nature, wind, space, time, and as these concepts get more obscure they are harder to understand and more powerful. Also, there are no H ranked dungeons, H rank means that one of these creatures could not kill a regular human without help. Currently there is only two G ranked dungeons, and as you may have guessed Ra is one and Aphrodite is another. Originally Ra started the law of fire and after he mastered it, he moved onto another law, life. To move into A, you must have mastered your first law and to move into S you must have started your second law. G rank stands for godling and while these beings are still physical things, they are immortal unless killed, these G ranked beings also have the chance to eventually turn into true gods, thus the yet to be reached rank of TG. While these beings do have infinite lifespans, they are not unkillable and have been killed at points in time. At the moment there are 10 G ranked beings, two for dungeons, two for humans, two for dwarves, two for elves, one for orcs, and one for beasts. All other types of beings (ex: undead) do not yet have a G ranked being in their midst.

Xavier POV

Finally, I am done, it feels as though my brain is mush after that information overload; however, the info is useful, and my headache is gone. My mana is full, and I am ready to build, I will never complain about mining again. I add on two tunnels on these most recent rooms that connects them, after this I turn it into another "T" intersection this new tunnel goes another 10 meters where I form another room then I have another tunnel going from that room an additional 15 meters. This will be my entrance and where I stop for now.

And now what I’ve been waiting for since the I got this gig, monsters and traps, FINALLY! So, first things first I need to see what I have available.

Monsters Monster Description Traps Horned Lizard - 250 Large muscular lizard with horn in the middle of its head. the longest horn ever recorded was 30 cm, can be up to 2 meters. Basic Pit Fall - 50 mana Weak Paralysis Snake - 100 Snake no bigger than 28 cm, has poison that can paralyze a target for 4 seconds up to rank D. Spikes - 15/spike Miniature Lizard - 25 lizard no bigger than 15 cm, has weak necrosis poison and can camouflage into its surroundings. Rock Fall

"I would recommend looking through the plants to help camouflage you creatures and provide them a habitat."

"I almost forgot you were there but that is a good idea so I’ll look into it"

Plants Descriptions moss - 1mana/ sq meter lives best in dark moist environments, no offensive capabilities grass - 1mana/ sq meter found almost everywhere, can serve as food for small herbivores vines - 1mana/ 5 vines found in jungles most often, good for climbing creatures, no offensive capabilities until later evolutions. small tree- 1mana/tree many different types maybe you'll get lucky, type is randomized, no offensive capabilities

The first thing Xavier did was turn some of his BP into dirt and covered every inch of the ground in it, the dirt is about 30 cm deep. Then he placed rocks randomly and put moss in the corners. He also thought it would be more convenient if all of his rooms were circular, so he expanded them now all of his rooms were about 15 meters in diameter, then he covered the floor in grass. Xavier then placed 5 small trees, all of which were common, and to put the finishing touches on he placed vines everywhere.

Next he created ledges high up for the snakes and miniature lizards; from those ledges he created tunnels that led to every room. One thing that Xavier refuses to do is have an ugly dungeon, in his previous life one of the only things he enjoyed to do was art and his favorite was sculpting (you can find clay everywhere) because of this he actually was a quite good sculptor, so in the areas that were darkest he sculpted gargoyles with a dim fire in its mouth. Now that all of the artistic and superfluous details are done it was time for the actual monsters and traps. He placed one horned lizard in the front room and the rooms on the right side of the "T" intersection and his core room. Then he placed several snakes and small lizards in each room. The last room on the left side of the "T" is absolutely infested with snakes and small lizards, it is also a proper jungle with mass amounts of vines. The only thing left for Xavier to do is add his boss and traps and he figured that the left side of the "T" should be mostly traps while the right side is mostly beasts. So, with great suspense he adds a basic pit fall and finds out that it is basically harmless.

"Hey what’s with these weak ass traps"

"No dungeons actually use those traps; most dungeons will make custom traps from the get go that are marginally more expensive while being exponentially more effective."

And so, Xavier went to work designing his own traps, he basically came up with more deadlier versions of the beginner traps as any traps that involve mechanisms get exponentially more expensive.

He placed the new and improved rock fall traps in the hallways as well as a few pit fall traps, and what has to be kept in mind is that these walls are wide enough for three people to walk side by side comfortably. His new pit fall traps were double the height and could have spikes added to the bottom. The traps in the hallways did not have spikes but the traps near his core did. All traps near his core were built to kill, not injure or cripple. He also placed traps sparsely around each room. Now for what everyone has been waiting for Xavier gets to place his boss.

“Your boss is just one monster in your dungeon that you have jacked up on various affinities of mana, so use any affinities you want and go for it.”

After testing how different affinities affected the Horned Lizard Xavier found out that nature variant mana just helped the evolution process and sped up what would have happened if a Horned Lizard was exposed to mass amounts of mana for a long time. This mana made every part of the horned beast stronger but gave no special abilities. Fire aspect mana made the lizard’s horn have a small blue flame come out of it as well as drastically increase the lizards speed. Any time the izard hits something it bursts into flame it also gives the special ability flame charge which makes the lizard burst into flame for five seconds and shoot flame out of its horn for those five seconds. The drawback is that the creature goes into a weakened state for 60 seconds before returning to normal. Water aspect mana makes the lizard into a great punching bag, it’s ability to absorb hits is drastically increased while its’ horn stays the same density. It also gives the special ability called flow which allows the lizard to absorb the damage from one attack without taking any damage. Xavier could choose to have either one peak F rank beast or two mid F ranked beasts (Mid F is one rank above all other Horned Lizards in the dungeon creatures in the dungeon). Both special abilities could have great applications thus he chose to have two mid F rank lizards, one of water and one of fire. Now he is ready for business, digging out the last small portion of the hallway leading to the surface light and fresh air flooded in. Little did he know, more than one person noticed the sudden influx of mana as the highly refined mana hit the air, would they be friend or foe. Find out next time on Dungeon of Beginnings (Pokémon Narrator voice).