As I lay there dying, waiting for the inevitable, I can see the glowing pulsating red light from what's left of the core that "WE", me and my supposed comrade in this event, shattered and only left a desirable fist size Core Gem.
'No. I'm not in the red light district, that's for sure. 'Cause I'm fucking dying here. Hello! How I hope I really am just in the red light district. With all this "What the fuck just happened?" going through my head. I might just want to blow off some steam.'
'Kicked out of the guild whom I help improved a lot! Finding comfort with my supposedly new found "COMRADES" who's just gonna cross me in the end. Not even letting me hold that awesome sword. Even just a touch I guess would be fine. I mean IT touched me, I didn't touch it. And when it did TOUCHED me, I died. Fuck.'
As my consciousness slowly started to fade. I heard a faint voice.
"Grab....."
"Grab....."
I tried to answer but, I can't even open my mouth let alone answer the mysteriously over calming voice. I guess I'm being called to the heavens now. Yeah. That must be it. I mean, it or whatever he or she is don't really need to call to me. No need to hurry bruh. But then it persist on calling me.
"Grab....."
"Grab....."
"Grab....."
"Grab....."
'Grab? Grabfood delivery? Grab the fucking what?' I wanted to shout at it, the voice. Not like I can turn my chair or anything. 'Arhg! Shut the fuck up I did not order anything on GRAB!' If I could just shout, I would tell him/her/it, ('man I don't even know what it identify as gender wise'), I can't open my mouth. Wait, what? No, if I could shout... I'll just let it all out. These are the things I can do without, come on! I'm talking to you, come on! No! No! Oh God no! P--please Azunai. Get a hold of yourself!
Yeah, so before I actually die, I already died once, or I don't know.. maybe a few times, few hundreds. I don't know or I got mind wiped the previous ones. But the last time, I was able to retain some of my memories, to which I thought was a good thing. No sers/madames, no. It gave me eternal headache that I have to tackle everyday. The worst part of it was the memories that I do remember were pretty much useless. I remember songs and whatever nonsense.
"Hey idiot! Here! I'm the core of this dungeon. Listen here. I might be able to help you."
'Whuuuuuuuuut?!'
"Currently, I am inside your head, I'm using my powers to invade your mind. And I'm hearing your thoughts."
'That's invasion of private property! Intellectual property!'
"Yeah, no, you don't have that kind of bright mind to be called intelligent."
'It's not about intelligent, but whatever floats your boat... so.. what do you want?'
"The shard that you have, I might be able to do something about your predicament."
'Really? Like you're gonna sacrifice yourself for me then I turn into this dungeon and I absorb you then I get revenge on those bastards and my old bastard friends and their bastard guild with their bastard of a leader, Sven?'
"What?! NO! What the fuck are you talking about? Why would I sacrifice myself for you when you're also a part of my weakening?!"
'Aaaaawwwww... welp. Then what are you thinking about right now?'
"I can help you, still, in a way that you will live and might even get revenge. It is as you've thought, you will become a dungeon using the shard you got from me. Then I will teleport you to a place-"
'Where?'
"Let me finish, ok?"
'Uhhhh.. sorry. :D'
"I will teleport you to a somewhat safe place, fairly safe place-"
'You don't know where I will really end up huh?'
"Hehe, well at least I will give you a chance. All you gotta do is to survive, then thrive. Who knows, one day you might be able to grow stronger than me and produce better creations than me that will be able to put up resistance to this plunderers. Or maybe more than put up resistance, maybe kill them?"
'Is this a sure thing tho? Is being a dungeon or dungeon core exciting?'
"Do you need it to be exciting when you only want to have revenge?"
'Are you serious? So all this time, you being a CORE only has revenge are your main agenda for existing? Is that even ok, are you ok? You need someone to talk to? I mean we still have time before I die or before you whisk me away..'
"Go fuck yourself.. GRAB the shard as hard as you can."
So I did. 'Now what?'
"now OUT you go!"
----------------------------------------
And with that, there's only darkness.
And this bluescreen.
Dungeon Overview
Name
Unknown Level 1
0%
Health 200
Mana 100 Floors 1 Minions Biologicals Constructs 0 0 Dungeon Abilities
Influence Level 1 Creatures caught in the miasma of the dungeon
may cohesively join or forcefully bend to the will of the dungeon at the cost of MANA.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
Excavate Level 1 Dig and extract new passage ways, rooms, minerals, and ores.
Fill Up Level 1
Fill up rooms and passages to close them down.
(Rooms being used and main passage ways may not be closed down.)
'So what do I do now? Is there any "HOW TOs" to being a dungeon? Do I just summon monsters? Where the hell am I even at?' were my thoughts after gaining some kind of semblance to consciousness. I don't even know how to see what's what. Is there no tutorial for this shit?
'SUMMON! SUMMON DRAGON! SUMMON.... BLUE EYES WHITE DRAGON!!!' I shouted in my thoughts. That last one... I remember... Now all the memories from previous life/lives are now clear. No longer they are just vivid and blurred. No, they are crystal clear. Oh yeah, I only have live one other previous life before the life of being Azunai. That was of life on Earth. A planet that is devoid of magic. But still has lots of fun stuffs.
So as I uttered those words I was prompted by what I call a "SYSTEM MESSAGE".
ERROR. No Dragon blue print found!
ERROR. No Blue Eyes White Dragon blue print found!
Tsss.. close but no cigar. How do I get said blue prints then? Do I buy it off the system?
'SYSTEM!'
.
.
.
.
No response, huh. But what the hell am I supposed to do?
'Help me out here System, or whoever the fuck you are, whatever the fuck you really are.'
'HELP!'
.
.
.
.
.
't(-.-t) SYSTEM!'
'Fuckitall!' that damned dungeon core didn't even help me get started or whatever.
Welp, I guess it's just me and myself.. for now at least. Let me figure out where I am right now... hmmm. Or at least figure out how to "SEE" where I am right now.
'Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate... breathe in... uhhmmm do I breathe? "Am I BREATHING?" is the question tho.' I asked myself but I feel like I'm kinda breathing.. but instead of air, it's MANA that I am breathing in.
'Breath in, breath in, breath in...
.
.
.
.
'breath innnnn...' I did not, even once, tried to breath out. Why? Coz I did not need to.
I expand my "Sense" all around me. I am in some kind of a cavern, where?, beneath the land? the side of a cliff? under the mountain? underwater? under the rainbow? where blue birds fly? or under... pressure! pushing down on me, pressin' down on you?
All jokes aside, it seems I am inside a mountain. I was able to feel what's what inside this little cavern. Nothin out of the ordinary inside the crevice, just rocks. Might be a rock bed? Rocking chair maybe? Hmmm.. a project for another time.. distant distant time?
So, as I am breathing in all the mana that is all around, on the rocks itself, in the mountain, in the air, in the air, in the ayer, ay-ayer, ayer, ay-ayer!
I was able to "Identify/Analyze" some of these rocks, and also some minerals. The rocks here are mostly granite, but there is also a highly sought rock that most artisans, mainly sculptures would want to get their hands on (I think?); marble. As for minerals, there is surprisingly, lo and behold, GOLD! Man there is a gold vein here? Damn, I am rich!
'Hmmmm... what would I want with marble? Only thing good with it is statues... hmmm.. make a monster out of marble? A construct? I mean, the marvelous statues sculpted by the greatest sculptures there is on EARTH and here on this planet, Aurelia, is.. well.. MARVELOUS.
Now that I regained my memories, I remembered that I am... was an Engineer.. that died on the project I had. On site. The scaffolding I was standing on while I inspected a building gave out. Regrettable as it was, it was my "destiny" I supposed. I left a family of 4, my wife and 2 children, the oldest a girl, then the youngest a boy. I also had a dog, a husky, and a cat, a stray that keep following me everyday on my way home. There's nothing I can do about it now. I also did not remember them during my second life as Azunai.
I was born into this world as Azunai, son to servants of a feudal lord of a county out in the frontier of the Empire of Cyrene. I toiled even as a child just to help out my parents. But a tragedy struck, monsters poured out of the forest that was near the farm that we used to live in. We were the most remote house out there, so we were the ones who got attacked first.
My father and mother gave it their all into running as fast as they could while also carrying me. But alas, we could not escape. They both gave their bodies to the monsters, they threw me away then they both threw themselves into the monsters to at least give me time. I ran as fast as I could without looking back, for I fear that if I did, the monsters would just be behind me.
Fortunately, or unfortunate that the Count's soldier came way to late. I still ran as fast as I could then, without looking back, and I was able to escape and live. Unfortunately from what I heard, those soldiers were decimated. The monsters had their fill then and returned to the forest. And that's when I made a vow to take up arms and become an adventurer. Even if I can't really take revenge on the actual monsters that killed my parents, I would at least revel in killing them.
And then of course.. here we are in this predicament. I don't even know how long it'd been since I've been breathing in all these mana. I can't tell time from inside the cavern. Without an opening to the outside, I wouldn't know. I have now accumulated a few thousands of mana. I don't know for the life of me if I gathered these many fast or even if it's a vast amount right now. Being able to tell time is really important to measure this shit. "TIME IS RELATIVE" shit hits real.
Dungeon Overview
Name
Unknown Level 1
0%
Health 200
Mana 100 Floors 1 Minions Biologicals Constructs 0 0 Dungeon Abilities
Influence Level 1 Creatures caught in the miasma of the dungeon
may cohesively join or forcefully bend to the will of the dungeon at the cost of MANA.
Excavate Level 1 Dig and extract new passage ways, rooms, minerals, and ores.
Fill Up Level 1
Fill up rooms and passages to close them down.
(Rooms being used and main passage ways may not be closed down.)
The skill "Excavate" says that I can dig and maybe extract earth. But how do I use it? Do I say the magic word?
There are plenty of loose rocks on the cave wall and pebbles on the ground.How can I tell the orientation of my being? How am I able to tell which is which? I don't fucking know. I just, did from the bottom of my core, already know if I'm upside down or not. But that's not what matters right now.
I exert my sense and mana into the ground and into a thumb size pebble..
Blue print acquired: GRANITE ROCK
Well, it vanished. Where to? I don't know, do I have some kind of "Spatial Inventory" or somethinge the likes? But anyway, now I have a blue print of granite. What do I do with it? I don't know. Nobody told me what to do. Even the system ain't that much of a help.
After that I went for the marble. No loose marbles on the wall and on the ground. So I once again exerted my mana and sense into the wall where there is marbles. I tried to concentrate to chip only about a cubic inch. Slowly but surely, I was able insert mana to cut through the marble and when I did cut through, the cubic piece disintegrated/vanished to who cares where the fuck it went.
Blue print acquired: MARBLE ROCK
Well now we're talkin, now we're talking..
And this is where the fun begins.