I have contemplated, deliberated, about where or how to really begin the fun.. I have no blue prints except for the granite and marble. What am I even to do with them? Make tiles? Would I gain anything if I do that? Would I gain xp points if I do? Even for tiles, I don't have the blue prints to do them, but I know how it looks like. Can I produce blue prints out of nothing but the use of my old memories?
I should better get started then. Let's start simple, tiles.. let's see how much mana it will consume.
From memories alone I started to concentrate to remember what kind of tile I would want starting from granite. Fairly simple 2x2ft polished granite tile.. how hard can it be huh?
Blue print acquired: GRANITE TILE
See?! See?! And it only consumed 10 mana?
'HAHAHA! with 6,739 that I have accumulated? Would I be able to cover the whole mountain in tiles? THE TILE MOUNTAIN!!! OK OK OK!'
I then followed it up with the marble one. Same same process, same same result.
Blue print acquired: MARBLE TILE
This one only costed me 11 mana. Now I am getting the gist of it. Just need to concentrate. I wanted to cover the whole floor in marble tiles now, but I relented. It wouldn't fit the current narrative I have in mind.. For now let's just concentrate on simple things.
But before any all of that.. I wanna excavate some more and see what's more inside this mountain other than gold and some not so precious minerals.
For now I can only excavate a cubic meter at the cost of 30 mana. Though I can dig, I can't dig downwards more that 20 meters from the ground floor that I have. 'Hmmmmm... would that mean that's my restriction? Will that be for the rest of the following floors? Or as I progress the the boundaries would also increase? Hmmmmmm... well, up we go then?'
So I dug upwards.
Dungeon Overview
Name
Unknown Level 1
Health 200
Mana 100 Floors 1
'So I also gain XP doing things like these?' I thought to asked myself after seeing the progress bar gain some... progress.
Excavate Level 1
Dig and extract new passage ways, rooms, minerals, and ores.
As well as the "Excavate", it too gained XP. 'So I would be able to increase my digging capacity if I level it some more? I guess.. hmmm.'
Laterally, I was able to dig for about 3.2km to the north, 1.63km to the west, 2.5km to the east. and only 1.2km to the south. 'I just know the cardinal directions, OK? How? I just can't explain, can't put it to words. Yeah I just made a cross intersection inside the mountain.'
It was at the "south" end that I bore a small whole about a cubic feet. Suddenly a gush of mana surge through. And here I thought that I am already fast accumulating the mana through the mountain.
I concentrated hard and tried "seeing" through with my "mind's eye". I was able to "see" outside now. It was dark. There seems to be nothing outside, no cities or towns or villages nearby that I could spy through my little peep hole. I did the same in the rest of the cardinal directions. Bore a whole through them and found nothing except for a vast sea of forest. The mountain I am situated at seems to be a lone mountain. 'Hmmmmmmmmmm.... gives me the vibes of some dwarves trynna go and recapture me...'
'Should I call myself the Misty Mountain Dungeon? And I'm the "Heart of the Mountain" precious stone that is adorned on the kings crown, eh?'
Change NAME to "Misty Mountain Dungeon"?
Yes/No
'NO!'
'What the fuck?! Hey system, why do you respond to something like that but not when I ask for help?!'
No response, yet again.
't(-.-t) SYSTEM!'
Now that I thought about those dwarves in the film, should I make a grand entrance like they have in the film? 'Hmmmmmm... maybe no. Not yet atleast. I don't wanna even open up or whatever. I gotta prepare. Like fully barricade the shit out of this mountain. Booby trap it every fucking square meter..
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Unfortunately I got no trap blue prints. But fortunately, I may be able to make simple traps from memories. Like pitfalls barbed with spikes, falling blocks of rocks, maybe.. 'Hmmm.. quicksand? One that connects to the lower floors? Yeah. A project for another time.' Got plenty of those "projects for another time" now eh.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
'I really need minions now. I need guardians... Safety must be secured first.'
Now, with all those excavation that I had done, there're other ores and minerals that I was able to get a "hand" of.
Blue print acquired: DIORITE
Blue print acquired: SILVER ORE
Blue print acquired: IRON ORE
Blue print acquired: RUBY
Blue print acquired: SAPHIRE
This mountain sure is rich in. Too bad there's no coal here.
And with the 4 hole that I made at each end of my supposed cardinal direction, I detached myself from the wall that I was in. All of this "Winds of Magic" ('Gonna call it that, coz why not?') gushing inside, the intersection would be the best place to... meditate? If that's what it's supposed to be called.
With all the mana, *cough* *cough* "WINDS OF MAGIC", I wanna try doing something different since I don't think there will be any creature that's gonna venture in here anytime soon since I'm pretty high up inside the mountain. Not quite on the ground level outside, mostly at 50+ meters up the mountain. So... Imma create, sculp, my first minion.. or guardian.
Creating a guardian wouldn't be far fetched since I can harness mana faster than what I could already do. The question is TIME. Will I have enough before the eventual discovery since I am already siphoning Winds of Magic from the outside. Only a matter of time before any mana sensitive individuals near the mountain would figure out what's going on.
So I am opting for guardian first. And since it will be my first denizen, it should be special. Very very special. something that will protect me through out my existence as a dungeon.
A guardian made out of sculpture. Marble sculpture. My sculpting experience is only with figurines back on Earth. Miniatures. Army of miniature astartes. I think that should be enough to constitute as experience, no?
So with all the resource blue prints that I have.. Let's get starting.
'What do I wanna make? Human sculpture? Man or Woman? Hmmmm...
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'Well, thinking is not easy huh? Hard to contemplate.' but I already made a decision.
'It's gonna be a man, the name would be , like, "name, The First Born". As for the figure, I thought about making me. Azunai. Makes sense yeah? Since I am fairly strong, hmmf, a hulking 6'10" of pure muscle and strength. Haaaaaa, being a muscle head costed me my life, damn.'
'Or should I be the me from Earth? Isshin. 6'00" fairly tall for an average human on Earth. I have a fairly good build since I play sports, football and basketball, twice a week. Hmmmm.. think should go with Isshin.'
With that I got started. It was already dawn when I started making Isshin. He ain't gonna be any normal sculpture, no. I will create a being, not just some sculpture. Isshin's gonna be a living, breathing being made of whatever I have here with me.
To start of, the bones.. the whole skeletal system, or at least from whatever I can recall from memories. I made the skeleton out of Iron.
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'Pheeeeew! Didn't think it would take me almost 26 days just to make the iron skeleton.'
Creature Blue print acquired: IRON SKELETON
And in that almost 3 weeks of creating just the skeleton, I spent more than a hundred thousand Mana points while I also harness it from the environment.
Dungeon Minion
Name
Unknown Level 1
Health 0
Mana 0 Creation In Progress
Well at least the system knows I ain't finish yet. But I can already create Iron Skeletons with just this. That's good to know.
'Hmmmmm... next... the Nervous System... but even if I did successfully recreate it using Electrum, the combination of Gold and Silver. Would it still function as it's supposed to be? I'll just make it and see... Welp, off to the cauldron we go.' There's no cauldron. It's just the Mana that's shaping whatever I think of.
Seeing how long it took me to create the skeleton, I tried moving the intersection at the center and then Fill Up all those that I dug out? in?.. whatever. I still left long holes that bore through the mountain to let in the Winds of Magic. I only left a room 5 meters wide 5 meters long and 3 meters high. This should be enough, and it's also compressing the mana more creating a swirling vortex of mana inside that I siphon as fast as I can for creating the supposed to be Nervous System.
'I hope it functions at it should be.' is what I prayed for. Then I started shaping mana into what would be the brain and the spinal chord and all the corresponding nerves that should run through out all the body. In by no means I am expert in the human anatomy. Just lucky enough that I red science books to during my Earth days. And now all the books are like pictures that I could pull out of the back of my consciousness and look at them like they are 4k prints.
This endeavor had taken me a hundred and some days. Never thought this would be such a toil. I just hope that this would be really really special, unique. This costed me more mana than I could ever hope to harness, almost a million points of mana. I've been actually thinkin of creating dragons out of memory only, but I guess that won't work, it would I think, but that would take eternity. Even just creating Isshin, this might take me a year if not more.
The next thing I am thinking of creating is the heart. The Circulatory System. But this had me in a pinch.
'What would be his heart? Make it gold? Make it literal? Heart of Gold.'
With these thoughts, I relented on doing the heart. The skin would be marble, the muscles the granite and tendons would be the diorite. What about the other organ systems? Should I really base him off of human anatomy, wouldn't that also make him weak to what humans are weak against? I am not making him human or anything like that. Considering all of these, I am thinking of making all there function how I envisioned them to. Marble skin that also stretches, muscles that contract and expand and relax, organs that should function what they should be for.
So with all of that in mind.. I tried creating them all at once, not one by one. Now that the skeleton and the nervous system are both combined, I started to venture, venture the unknown.
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It took 863 days to be exact, to create what is going to be Isshin. And still not finished, there is still the heart. The heart is what will give life, that will make Isshin into being, being "ALIVE". Pretty sure this will take time too. For how long? I don't know really. Lucky enough, I still haven't been discovered. The Mana that it costed me were more that a billion points. Now the dream of creating Blue Eyes White Dragon seemed to be just gonna be a dream. I don't even know if I can "dream"...
Dungeon Minion
Name
Unknown Level 1
Health 0
Mana 0 Creation In Progress
So , anyway. I have to a conclusion of what his heart is gonna be made of. Since I have access to ruby, why not right? But not just some precious stone ruby. A mana stone ruby. Ruby mana stone. Then make it a core. Monster core. Mana core. Ruby mana core. The same would go for the veins. The whole circular system would be a Ruby Mana Core.
'You might ask "why?", well, it's to make Isshin independent of my mana. I'm pretty sure dungeon cores provide mana sustenance to its denizens that you'd call upkeep. See? Am I not intellegent? Planning ahead. :D'
And with that in mind, and with Isshin's body already to receive heart transplant. I got into it.
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Somewhere not near the mountain, in some not so fancy and not so grand of a castle, sits a man in his study inspecting a parchment in his hand. Also not the Empire of Cyrene that Azunai, the core, have come to detest.
Year 3313 of Imperial Calendar of Cindaria
28th Cycle of Luna
To His Majesty the King,
King Ixlimar XIV,
Long may live the Kingdom, and the King who guides us all!
The expedition goes well though we have some setbacks. We have come upon a base of operation of cultist that plagues our Kingdom. Innocent civilians have to be rescued and brought to the nearest settlement to which took 3 cycles of Luna. We continued on our expedition to the frontier only to be waylaid by the incursion of the Cyrenic Imperials. We were able to rout them, we captured some of their nobles that we ransomed for and added to our expeditionary coffers. These asset would provide us more time for the expedition. We also encountered large groups of bandits that dared try their fortune on our expedition. We overcome these ruffians and put them in chains, we will be sending them to our mines. On our way to the frontier, we have learned of a Viscount inciting and insurrection against the Crown. We were lucky enough to get a wind of it and nip it in the bud before it garnered more support from the neighboring nobles and the peasantry.
Though I am untroubled that these cultists and bandits and Rebels will not impede us on our quest on searching the place of which our Oracle has foretold.
Your Son and Heir,
Prince Kymar od Strygga