Chapter 1
There is no such thing as fate or luck. There is only the will to succeed and the drive to live. Never doubt yourself, for to doubt is to fail, to fail is to die
-(Everett the Emperor, conqueror of the Western World)
Today would be the day he finally succeeded. It would mark his ascension to the realms of a master pill refiner after all his years of hardship and struggle. He could still hear the other children calling him things like waste and half breed when he closed his eyes but he had proved them all wrong. While the other children of the village were living out their days as farmers, carpenters, and bakers he was an alchemist of renown.
While certain nobles and other more prejudiced people would avoid his work because he was a half elf, many more cared more for his skill than his looks. Not to say he was bad looking, not to be vane but he was a handsome man still the smoother skin, a more refined bones structure and pointed tips to his ears gave his true heritage away. Over the years he’d had a few flings but no one he was really able to settle down with. Most of the women would be with him for the time it took to receive a few gifts from him but then quickly fade away, or the kind of women who didn’t mind spending a night or two with just for the excitement that hint of exotic his heritage gave him but they wouldn’t settle for a half elf in the end.
All of his misfortunes would change though if he could finish this experiment. He would become the fourteenth master alchemist on the continent and from there not even kings or emperors could look down on him. His influence would rival that of gods, his legacy would be eternal, maybe he could even pave a path towards peace between the major races so no more half breeds like himselves were cast aside left to fend for themselves in the world.
He would step away from the hundreds of other Greater Spirit Rank Alchemists and reach the peak of alchemy. Too think it all started with his mother dying the irony of it all, if she’d lived he might have never gotten to this point in life. But that was the past and this was the future. He would shake the world with this experiment no longer would dungeons be a thing of mystery a rare creature never truly understood.
*****
After his mother passed away the village cast him out into the wilderness with little more than the clothes on his back. For five years he’d roamed the woods hiding from beasts and struggling to survive as he learned about all the dangers of the wilderness.
Finally just after his 17th birthday he stumbled upon a cottage. In their lived an old man, his eyes half blinded from the countless years they’d seen. Other than his mother he was one of the first people to show kindness to him to really care about him. The man was beyond ancient but in no way was he infirm and from him the boy learned many things about alchemy. In the mornings he would prepare breakfast then head out to chop fire for the stove and hearth. Later as the sun rose higher in the sky the two would set out into the woods the man pointing out all the different plants to the boy. In the evenings sometimes he learned about alchemy than old man's skill might not be what it once was but he was still a powerful alchemist.
For four years the young man learned from the man until he reached the peak of journeyman rank alchemy. Then after they celebrated his 21st the man sent him out to find his flame. Two years later he returned with the ‘swampy spirit flame’, a lesser divine flame, the old man congratulated him and gave him the final piece of his legacy accepting him as his fourth disciple. Two weeks later he finally passed away and the young man buried him underneath his favorite tree.
*****
As he combined the massive water mana crystal with the blood of an earth dragon he heard the roar of thunder and looked up. The sky had darkened but that was not his concern no mere weather could stop him. As he mixed the ground up feathers of a roc and dust from the horn of a unicorn he spoke the the ancient grating words of the abyss. Filled with power the crystal changed from the mere water stone it used to be to a clear crystal roiling with a myriad of colors. All it needed was lightning and fire he thought and it would be complete. However even as he brought out his divine flame he felt the first bolt of lightning strike him and the crystal.
Why he wanted to shout, after everything I’ve gone through still the heavens punish me. Even as his muscles convulsed his heart stopping and then shuddering to life once more. His organs burnt beyond recognition he knew this was the end. Nevertheless my achievement shall live on he thought as he forcefully refined the crystal burning the fires of his life to imbue it with remnants of heavenly tribulation. Completed he saw it glow before a second boom of thunder shattered his achievements. The last thing he saw was the second flash of lightning even as he felt it coursing through his veins his body falling to the ground as the crystal tugged upon his soul.
****
Through the creation of an artificial core, your soul, and the spark of life from a bolt of heavenly lightning your dungeon core has formed.
Wait what the hell happened the last thing I remember is. Crap this is what I get for experimenting with the unknown. I should have just made a 100 years life potion, maybe a sovereign pill spirit, or even an elemental bestowal pill. Why did I have to try to create my own dungeon core. That tiny voice though at the back of my head though said it worked didn’t it. That’s not the point I shouted at it, I died or at least my body did.
Dungeon Cores must choose their resident races (pick 2)
* Animals (Avian, Reptilian, Mammalian, or Fish)
* Goblins
* Kobolds
* Slimes
* Plants (Monsters)
* Undead
* Demons
Crap I don’t want to do this right now but even though most people would think it stupid I know I want plant monsters. As a former alchemist I know many things about the different types and how to cultivate them besides everyone always underestimates plant monsters. Other than that I’m not sure. Demons and undead are out because of all the different holy churches. I’ll toss slimes out because I already want plants and in a lot of ways plants and slimes are similar. They both have varied evolutions and most plant monsters are mindless like slimes.
I think I want an animal type because while goblins or kobolds would be useful they offer much worse loot than animal types and dungeons with low amounts of loot are often destroyed by the greedy, especially young ones. I’ll pick birds because they will give them the advantage of flight and they can hide in the trees among my other monsters before swooping down on adventurers.
Dungeon: ????
Mana: 2,113
Mana Regen: 1 mp/h
Skills: Dungeon Manipulation, Earth Magic, Water Magic, Forest Spirit Flame (Divine Flame), Heavenly Lightning Flame (Divine Flame), Creature Creation
Okay, let's just set all the doubt aside and try to make this work for a minute. I don’t want my core taken because I haven’t formed a dungeon yet.
Creations: Moss (2 mana), Grass (5 mana), Maple (50 mana), Mandrake Monster (60 mana), Hummingbird (10 mana), Woodpecker (25 mana), Hawk (50 mana)
The knowledge just flowed into me, I instantly knew how to create all of them. While it might seem limited it was better than nothing. Before they picked their starting race all dungeons knew how to make was the most basic moss. He also had his old mana pool but it looked like once he used it he would have to wait for ever to increase it back up to that again unless he could increase his regen.
First off he needed to see what he had to work with so he started spreading his influence over the area. It was similar to utilizing the spirit, a type of vision given by the soul.Slowly his influence expanded out, first 1 meter then 2 until he reached 10 meters in all directions from his core. It was mostly a clay based soil in all directions, however I did find a chunk of magnetite which is promising.
Now to be honest I thought it was just some kind of rock but once I scanned it the information about it just flowed into me. Apparently it is a high quality iron ore and occasionally pieces of it can become magnetized. Magnetized magnetite is known as lodestones an important part of making a non magical compass. So it would be useful as a source of loot.
Materials: Soil, Clay, Magnetite, Lodestone
*****
Dwarf Maple created (30 mp)
The Dwarf Maple ended up about 8 feet tall and wide once I funneled another 30 mana into it to make it finish growing. Of my three rooms I ended up filling the first room with moss and grass before placing four mandrakes scattered about. One was near each entrance while the other two were on the most likely paths through the room.
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The second room was covered with more grasses and moss but also held three dwarf maples. I created a nest in the branches of the farthest back maple for a pair of hawks, then created five more mandrakes, and for the hell of it created a woodpecker. People might be distracted by the sound of the woodpecker drilling and miss the moment of attack from the hawks and mandrakes.
The last room had a grove of 7 dwarf maples and the floor blanketed with grass. My core was hidden in the far wall near the floor. I planted a tuft of grass in front of it to help shield the glow and keep me away from the prying eyes of adventurers. After some thought I created 5 hawks and 2 woodpeckers giving me one bird per tree. The hawks would swoop down and attack while the woodpeckers would hopefully provide a distraction. Spread out in the center of the grove I placed 5 mandrakes, their attacks would be weak but hopefully there shrieks could put and with they might be able to tangle up an adventurers feet causing them to stumble presenting an opening to the hawks.
The boss room was 10 meters across on all sides, For a total of 100 square costing me 100 mana. The other two rooms were smaller with the first being 4 by 8 meters and the second 5 by 10 meters. Overall creating the rooms and short narrow hallways was only 190 mana but populating the rooms was the real cost. 840 mana alone was spent on the mandrakes and they weren’t even very powerful creatures. 1,815 mana was spent on turning these rooms from dirt to an inhabitable dungeon albeit a small one with only 3 rooms.
Now I just needed to add the finishing touches. By crystallizing 10 lightning mana I created a common grade lightning attribute mana stone which emitted a faint light illuminating the rooms. Next was the creation of a common grade water mana stone which would give off trickles of water for the plants use. After placing them the dungeon had 6 lightning attributed stones and 10 water attributed mana stones. As rewards for clearing the rooms in addition to the beast and monster corpses I created a chunk of magnetite, the standard size of just over a pound with magnetites weight, for the first room. The second room got the same reward as the first while my third and final room got a much better one. It had a chunk of lodestone and a common grade earth attribute mana stone as a reward near the back of the room on the opposite side of the back wall as my crystal.
Dungeon: ????
Mana: 118
Mana Regen: 19 mp/h
Skills: Dungeon Manipulation, Earth Magic, Water Magic, Forest Spirit Flame (Divine Flame), Heavenly Lightning Flame (Divine Flame), Creature Creation
After finishing the last change his consciousness grew fuzzy and I fell into a sleep like daze. Awake but not aware, seeing all but not processing anything. Slowly the hours passed and the changing of the sun brought the dawn of new day once then twice high above in the lands touched by the light of the sun. Until with the setting of the sun I awakened.
What was that all about I thought. It almost felt like a mana burnout, which I guess in a way it was. I used almost all my mana and like a person I collapsed into a mana coma of sorts. I would have to be aware of that especially since as I was a dungeon mana was everything to me. How high does it have to be too be fully aware?
Dungeon: ????
Mana: 1,004
Mana Regen: 19 mp/h
Skills: Dungeon Manipulation, Earth Magic, Water Magic, Forest Spirit Flame (Divine Flame), Heavenly Lightning Flame (Divine Flame), Creature Creation
So I was fully functional above 1,000 mana points, and could probably withstand dipping down to 400 or 500 points but below that my mind shuts down. That is troublesome but there’s nothing I can do about it.
As a reward for creating a simple dungeon, 3+ rooms you may choose a name.
This was my chance to start anew so what would I call myself. Arvid that would embody me in the days to come. An ancient name for an eternal being. From this day forth I am of tree and eagle, Arvid.
As a named dungeon you earn the right to impose dungeon laws and expand downwards creating ever more layers.
So that was how I got those powers. I hadn’t tried expanding downwards since I could hardly make a first floor but I knew that dungeons had the right to set up certain rules in their domain. With it I could set up automatic repairs, secret areas unlocked by hidden conditions, and extra rewards for meeting certain criterias.
With these new abilities I set up an automatic repair function so that whenever a floor was empty it would be automatically repaired. In addition I set up an extra reward of a common grade water mana stone that can only be earned by completing the first floor without destroying any of the trees, significantly harming the grass and moss, or attacking my woodpeckers.
Now all I had to do was open myself to the world. Sure I’d like to stay hidden for longer but on the off chance that my displacing the dirt and creating the dungeon was noticed I couldn’t risk being labelled as a sneaky dungeon. They’re the ones who hide never connecting with the outside world and because of their elusive habits and the frequent monster hordes they spawn hatred against them over 50% are destroyed when first found. After waiting until I had enough mana to do it in one shot I made a tunnel about 6 meters long and just over a meter and a half wide out the side of the small hill I was in.
The entrance looked like a hole in the side of the hill so I used my extra mana to grow two dwarf maples one on each side of the entrance before turning the outside layer of the entrance into an arch made of magnetite and hardening it enough so that it wasn’t worth the effort of excavating to get a bit of iron ore.
*****
Over the next six days I just worked on accumulating mana and expanding my influence. As a dungeon none of my previous cultivating techniques worked but I was trying to piece together something from the various techniques I knew of but for now it was a bust. However, today I got a sensation like someone was staring at me. You know the feeling where the hair raises on the back of your neck and you can feel someone's watching you even if you don’t know who.
*****
(Adventurers POV)
“I’m telling you I saw a bolt of Heavenly Tribulation strike this area, then a few days later there was a shift in the earth mana. Some kind of natural treasure was born here and a powerful one at that.” The leather armered man insisted this time he was right about something.
“I don’t know Michael, how many times have we went on these blind searches to help you find some rare beast or heavenly treasure. It was probably just some regular lightning and a slight tremor.” A refined looking dark haired gentlemen in light metallic armor complained.
“I think he’s right about something happening, I felt the change in the surrounding mana. However, I doubt it’s really caused by the birth of a heavenly treasure” She held up a hand for them to stop, brushed a strand of bluish black hair out of her eyes tucking it behind her ear.
“I’m going to try sensing for the origin of the disturbances we should be close enough.” Sitting cross legged she brought her hands together palms touching and fingers pointing up. Slowly a bluish glow distorted the air around her as she concentrated slowly extending her senses outward. After ten minutes or so she shook her head and went to get up when she let out a gasp.
“What is it Michelle, did you find something?” The first man asked anticipation in his eyes. Had he finally found a real treasure?
With eyes filled with confusion, shock, and awe she stood up dusting the dirt off her robes.
“It’s a dungeon. From the aura it appears to be a newly born one, but this is big guys if I’m right we really found a dungeon.”
“Wow, you actually found something. I guess lady luck shined on us today.” A big blond haired brute covered in plate armor had a massive ax resting over his shoulder gripped in one hand and a giant kite shield strapped across his back.
“Shut up Jedrek. We found a dungeon do you know what this means? ” A dark haired elven beauty hit him upside his armored head with her bow.
*****
(Dungeon POV)
I chuckled at the adventurers looks of awe and desire for my dungeon. They hadn’t even seen it and they already consider it a treasure. So unlike my prior existence back then one look at me and they looked away in disgust, spat to the side, or cursed me a halfbreed. Still my happiness faded away as I looked harder, the adventurers were all mid C rank way stronger than anything I had in my dungeon. Hopefully they don’t want my core, if they do I hope they can’t find it I think as I conjure up a massive lightning attribute mana stone using 100 mana. Without looking too closely one might think it a dungeon core and if not they might accept it and not search to hard for my core.
Finally after about a half hour of searching for the exact location of the entrance they arrived. They didn’t seem too impressed with the entrance but the elf women commented that it was better than the ones on most new dungeons and some old ones. They entered in single file do to the narrow hallway with the giant in the lead his shield blocking all potential attacks, followed by the lightly armored man with a rapier and buckler. The two girls went next with the last man, Michael I think his name was brought up the rear.
They came into the first room armed to the teeth quickly assembling into a V formation before looking around in disbelief. I heard quite a few ask the others if this was really a dungeon or not. A lot of their wariness left them when they saw just common grass and moss in the cave. That’s when the first two mandrakes popped out of the ground letting loose ear shattering screams. One attacked the feet of the giant with the shield but it’s teeth and hands couldn’t penetrate his armor. The other had better success on Michael who was clothed in leather armor, it’s teeth pierced through his ankle even as he let out a girlish shriek, vaguely reminiscent of a squealing pig. However a blow from the giant's axe and and a spear formed of condensed earth mana easily killed them.
The others were all poking fun at Michael, from what I could tell he was an earth mage or something, but he had a short sword in one hand. However, the Elven beauty called their attention back to the mandrake, apparently they were an uncommon material in a few mortal rank alchemy recipies. I’d guessed they were low mortal rank but had never personally worked with them. It only took them a few minutes to clear the room and then they waited while the guy with the rapier sketched out a map of the room.
After picking up the magnetite ore by the hallway to the second room they entered the second room. I would like to say that it took them longer to clear it than the first but that would be a lie. They didn’t expect the bird but they quickly dealt with the mandrakes to end the shrieking while the bluish haired mage maintained a shield of water over their heads against the birds. After killing the mandrakes in a blow each the archer shot two arrows quickly dispatching my two hawks.
Only the third and last room gave them pause when the water shield collapsed before the mandrakes were completely finished off but a rain of arrows halved their numbers and a couple more swings of axe and sword killed the last of them. After searching the room they gathered all the loot including the bonus water mana stone and the giant lightning mana stone I hoped to use as an imitation core. A couple of them pointed over to where I’d hid my core but in the end they left it alone. I’d survived my first encounter with adventurers.