My dungeon proper, not the basin in its entirety, but my little hole in the ground, is rather trash. The one room with a handful of earth golems, with the only reward being their mana stone cores, is not the makings of a great dungeon. The largest of dungeons I remember, have a very delicate balance of ‘Risk vs Reward’.

I want to lure beings in, as dangerous as it sounds, so that I can get stronger. Some may question my morals that I had from being a human, and if luring beings to their deaths was ethical. Well, I'd like to put them in my situation, whether I get stronger, or I get enslaved/killed. Not a very hard choice for me.

With any existential questions of ethicality aside, I started digging in my memories from my younger years on earth, when video games were frequent in my life. I remember one particular game that I believe I can base my first couple floors off of. I take metally note that I will probably have limited space for the first few layers, as I am above normal ground level in a mountain.

I start off by making one hundred rooms, about 30 square meters in size, and 10 meters tall. Now I connect each room with a 5x5x10 meter tunnel. I briefly remember a skill common among craftsmen called [Schematic]. It was acquired by consistently making something 1000 times, and the use of the skill was to create a schematic, which then allows the schematized item to be made almost unconsciously, with almost 100% accuracy.

I was about to make 900 more rooms before I hit myself in the head mentally. I started creating 1000 stone rectangular prisms 5x1x1 centimeters. It was actually a mentally taxing process, that I did not realize before. The second I finish making them, I gained the skill and something seems to snap in my mind, I create thousands of more rectangular prisms, something that previously took hours, now takes minutes.

With the skill [Schematic], anything I make can be saved as a schematic, combined with my dungeons natural repair mechanism, I can make a variety of room layouts, and when one room is ‘Cleared’ by an adventurer, it instead of being returned to the identical room before, it can select from a wide variety of layouts reserved for that room.

I look at my current floor layout of barren interconnected rooms. I immediately started using the [Schematic] skill, starting with the first room layout. In the first layout, I have 5 small earth golems, and a chest, I make a mental note to make chest layouts that govern all the chest I place. I feel like it needs to be more sinister though, something I need to include in all rooms.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

I remember a simple rune developed as a prank by some random aspiring inscriptionist. It was lovinging called ‘directional dyslexia rune’. It was placed at all intersections of a very populated capital city. Basically, if you decide to go left, you will think your right, is actually left. It left several people confused for three days before another inscriptionist saw through it, and removed each rune.

I decided to add this rune to every room layout on this floor, rendering maps ineffective, not that the changing layouts wouldn’t make it hard enough to map. I also add doors to each room that close upon entered, and opens when all enemies are defeated. I then start to make a variety of different rooms with different obstacles and varying rewards, still relatively simple and danger level low.

I use the schematic skill to populate these rooms in reality. Watching as they randomly fill up with the various layouts, I think to myself what rules govern how each room is chosen. I realize that I actually can not do anything more, limited by my resources and level, I can not make a second floor, nor add more creative layouts.

I am now just an unknown hole in the ground, I am not getting experience in enough amounts to level, the variety of small animals giving experience had diminishing returns, no longer giving me any experience. I then remember to add another, disconnected room, it is basically an outer ring with a few mana generators and mana flow runes.

As I start getting bored, I mentally snap to my avatar, after several days of slowly going upriver in an endless slew of mountains, I actually come out of them, the river going past the mountains. This peculiar geography messes with my head, but I was never the best geographers in either of my lives.

After a few more hours of mountains turning into plains, a city appears in the distance, instead of arriving from the unused river, the boat is stored as I make my way to land, about a kilometer from the river, I hit what seems to be a main road. It seems to be deserted. I slowly make my way towards the city kilometers ahead.

As I get closer, my hopes are somewhat dashed as I get closer, what I hoped to be a city, was barely a town. I crossed my fingers and hoped that there will the basic facilities to enact my plan. Walking one foot in front of the next, I arrived in front of a large gate, a guard standing with a bored albeit somewhat surprised look.

The guard kept his emotions as he said with a placid voice, “Three coppers for a day, 18 for a week. If you do not renew your entry permit, you are subject to -” and then he started in a monotonous voice listing off punishments. Not unfamiliar with the general laws of various kingdoms, entry tax being common, I hand over 18 coppers I swiftly made and took out of a hidden ‘Pocket’.

I make my way into the town without much scrutiny. A map on the side of the road shows me the general layout of the city, noting the bookstore and the administrative building, I head to the bookstore first. The town seemed to be have little wood in its construction, making me suspect a quarry was somewhere nearby, for I did not see any trees on the horizon.

I amble on my way with the occasional odd stare from passersby.